The Last Game
by AgnesDei
Summary: Hoffman has been released from the bathroom to find a changed world and a chance of redemption in the kindness of strangers.  However, there are three people on his trail, one of whom will stop at nothing to keep their promise to a dead man.
1. Chapter 1

**(A/N: Since there's limited room in the description, updated warnings are as follows: This story contains multiple instances of strong language, violence and sex as well as several disturbing themes.)**

* * *

He'd been hearing soft noises from outside the bathroom for several minutes, but had kept a watchful silence in order to analyse them for meaning within context before reacting. It wasn't until the crack of the first gunshot that Hoffman started, scrambling first to his knees and then to his feet, the chain around his ankle rattling and skittering across the floor as he moved. The shot was followed in quick succession by three more.

In spite of the appalling acoustics and the slight muffling effect of the steel door, he quickly realised that what he was hearing was a rifle rather than a handgun, which added a strange new dimension to the situation: who would use a rifle in such close quarters if they could possibly help it?

There was another report, this one sharp enough to indicate that the shooter was, if not right outside the bathroom door, then at the least not far from it. He tensed, and age old instinct had him scanning his immediate surroundings for something with which to protect himself. A futile effort; even if Lawrence Gordon hadn't deliberately disposed of the only sharp object in the vicinity, the room was in perfect darkness and Hoffman couldn't see an inch in front of his nose.

The shots seemed to have ceased and, with them, the stealthy shuffling sounds that had gone before. He drew a deep breath as the door shook, as if someone had pounded on it, and was then dragged back. He promptly shied back and averted his eyes, the action pure reflex; the unseen intruder was now shining a flashlight into the bathroom, and after God knew how many days of uninterrupted gloom, the strong light clawed at his retinas.

"What're you doing chained up in here, friend?" said the blurry shape in the door, still keeping him pinned in the flashlight's circle. The voice was male, moderately suspicious and seasoned with a Southern accent of some breed.

"Who are you?" asked Hoffman. There was no verbal response, but all at once the barrel of a rifle was raised into the light, the muzzle aimed at his eye.

"I believe I asked first," said the voice, smoothly. "Why're you chained up in here and who's been eatin' these cadavers?" The second part of the query was delivered just as matter-of-factly as the first. Hoffman's brow knotted.

"Who do you think?" he asked, sourly. Neither the light nor the weapon moved an inch, however, and there was a quiet, measured interval before the man behind them spoke up once more.

"Were you bitten?" he said, quietly. There was something about both the question itself and the way in which it was pitched that caused Hoffman to take two steps back in bewilderment.

"What the fuck kind of question is that?"

The barrel of the rifle vibrated a little, almost exactly as if the man who held it had shrugged ever so slightly.

"The easy kind," he said, still eerily calm and reasonable. "Were you bitten: yes or no?"

All at once, in spite of the fact that there was always an outside chance that he'd simply gone quietly and effectively crazy locked up in the dark with the dead, Hoffman was disturbed. There were certainly things he would have expected to be asked upon being discovered, but this question was not one of them. Something was deeply and profoundly wrong with the whole situation.

"Bitten by _what?_" he growled.

These seemed to be the magic words, although he couldn't think what their significance might be. The barrel of the gun dropped, followed by the light itself, and now the beam was sweeping and playing around the bathroom as if searching for something.

"Light switch to the left of the door," said Hoffman, helpfully. The flashlight's beam danced in that direction and the man followed after it, flicking the switch. There was a low hum and several soft pinging sounds, and then the harsh blue-white overheads stuttered into life.

"Half the city's out now," he said, conversationally and – it seemed – mostly to himself, as Hoffman screwed up his stinging eyes in the glare for a second. "I guess this block's on a different grid."

Finally, by inches, Hoffman refocused his gaze once more and looked his visitor up and down. The man was wearing sheriff's brown and a star, and was now stowing the rifle behind his back. He was lean but clearly agile and wiry with it, and stood balanced on the balls of his feet as if fully prepared to leap at a split second's notice. His deep blue eyes were badly shadowed, his cheek was lined and he didn't appear to have shaved in several days, but despite these obvious signs of physical and emotional exhaustion there was still an air of animal alertness about him.

"How long've you been in here, sir?" he asked, remaining on the far side of the room for the moment. Hoffman's eye caught a small, reflexive movement; the cop's hand was looking to light upon on the butt of a side-arm that wasn't there any more, which made the battered Remington slung over his shoulder that much greater a puzzle.

"Hell if I know," said Hoffman, with forced patience. "What's the date?"

"The sixteenth."

"Nearly three weeks, then," he said, ruefully but without much real surprise. It was close enough to his own private estimate. He rubbed at his cheek, feeling the unfamiliar growth of beard except where the ugly scar crossed his face.

"So you don't know?"

Hoffman took hold of what remained of his patience with both hands and glowered at the cop. "Sheriff," he said, coldly. "I've spent the last nineteen days here. Right here," – he kicked at the chain for emphasis – "in this bathroom, drinking toilet water and chewing on legs. I don't have a radio down here, so whatever's happened out there since the end of last month, I don't know jack shit about it. All I do know is I'd like to get this chain off and walk out of here. If you can help me with that, that'll be great, but can we please get the fuck on with it?"

The cop nodded thoughtfully, not looking at Hoffman, and studied the ceiling for long moments with his lips pursed in what looked like considered thought. When he finally returned his attention to the detective, his eyes were as cool as flint.

"Okay," he said, eventually, "I guess that ain't unreasonable, but now I'm going to lay my own cards on the table and I hope you'll pardon my honesty.

"I have a group outside for whom I'm responsible. There are women and children, including my own family. They're my first priority, and you come a pretty distant second until I'm satisfied you ain't just another threat to them. Now, I'll let you out, but not before you've had the good manners to tell me who put that shackle on you in the first place and why. I only wandered in here in the first place because the house seemed to be attractin' a lot of walkers and I had to wonder about that."

"Walkers?" asked Hoffman.

"Yeah," said the cop, chewing the inside of his cheek, suddenly apprehensive. "This might prove to be a long tale and you're probably not going to believe it without havin' seen for yourself, so it can wait. Let's get your story outta the way first, shall we?" He unshipped the rifle again, weighing it in both hands. "By the way? Sheriff Rick Grimes. Pleased to make your acquaintance."

* * *

"Shit. Fucking _shit_."

Mallick had blurted out these words in a blind panic as he'd watched the cop enter the house, and only now remembered his audience. More to the point, he remembered his audience's age. He turned to his young companion with an anguished and apologetic air.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't say stuff like that in front of you, should I?" he asked, sheepishly. Diana's brow creased with faint amusement and she looked him up and down. Mallick was good enough company and in spite of what she sensed to be genetic cowardice, he'd conquered this handicap and proven himself moderately brave and capable over the past few weeks. His only real drawback, as this little episode confirmed, was a tendency to regard her as if she were four instead of fourteen.

"Believe me," she said, evenly, "I probably know more dirty words than you, okay? You're not going to scar me. And stop freaking out, all right? Hoffman's probably long dead, anyway."

She turned back to the window and trained the binoculars on the house opposite, although she was aware that Mallick continued to scrutinise her cautiously. After a few moments more she set the glasses down once more and pierced him with a rapier of a stare.

"Mallick, I've got this," she said, firmly, through a condescending smile. "It's not brain surgery and I don't need a babysitter, okay? If you want to report it, go report it and stop bugging me." So saying, she turned back to the window, signalling an end to the discussion with such clarity that even Mallick, not by nature one of the world's most perceptive men, got the message.

He wandered downstairs instead, checking that the front and rear doors were locked and bolted and the blinds drawn, as had become a slightly obsessive habit of his when he either had nothing else to do or there was something on his mind; in this case, it was both. He was finding that in spite of his initial desire to raise the alarm about what had just happened, all of a sudden he could think of few things he wanted less than to walk down the cellar steps and relate what he'd seen. Most of this was because he knew what it would entail: they would be compelled to pack up and leave a house that had so far proven to be an effective shelter and head out into a dark city swarming with walkers.

Mallick was prepared to concede that there were plus points to the thought, though; the cop had at least one gun, which was more than their little band possessed. He'd seen Diana swing a fire axe in both hands and behead walkers with a degree of clinical accuracy that terrified him to the very core of his being – and that was _nothing_ compared to the cold killing streak demonstrated by the other member of their party – but he would feel safer still with a working firearm close by.

He stood in the middle of the kitchen in an agony of indecision, one hand on the door handle. He heard the distant pop of gunfire from the house across the street, and this made his choice for him. He turned the handle and unclipped his flashlight from his belt.

The steps were gloomy, it being standard practise that electricity was used only when strictly necessary. He had no idea how or why the grid in the east of the city was still operational when the west and waterfront had been plunged into darkness for four days now, but he understood that it would only be a matter of time before theirs shut down too, and it would not be a good idea to become reliant upon what would eventually fail them.

He reached the foot of the stairs and found himself in the warm wash of light from a battery lamp. On the far side of this glow, on the very edge of the circle but still within its fringes, a seated figure in a shabby hooded coat ran an oiled cloth along the flat of a razor sharp claymore with slow and measured strokes. As it moved, the cloth picked up stray streaks and specks of dried blood from the glowing blade. Though he had made more than enough noise descending the stairs and closing the door and the figure in the chair could not possibly be unaware of his presence, the cloth continued its path along and back the length of the vicious double-edged blade.

"We may have a small problem," said Mallick, his eyes fixed upon this smooth, repetitive movement. His words failed to elicit a response, so he tried again.

"There's a cop in the house," he said, nervously. "I've heard shots. Diana thinks Hoffman's already dead and we shouldn't worry, but maybe you should come see for yourself?" Even to his own ears, Mallick realised that he was babbling, but he had honestly expected more reaction than this. "Please?" he added.

The cloth finally halted in its path, although he had no way of knowing whether this was because of his plea or simply because the weapon had finally been cleaned to its owner's satisfaction. Either way, the hooded shadow tossed the rag aside and slipped the sword back into its scabbard with the quiet hiss of steel on silk, setting it down on the workbench with all due care.

Only then did it stand and retrieve a polished ebony cane from beside the chair.


	2. Chapter 2

"Rick says you're a cop, too?"

Andrea spared her taciturn passenger a glance as she shifted the truck down on an incline, taking as much time as she could to study him. He was, though haggard, filthy, haunted and obviously exhausted, still a physically imposing man with a noticeable presence, and a black air about him that she sensed was more than just a product of recent events, quite aside from whatever had happened to rip such a horrific duelling scar up his cheek.

She had requested that she be the one to transport their new addition, in spite of concerned objections from Rick, who was clearly not taking Hoffman's story at face value just yet, and even more worried queries from Dale, who had looked the putative detective over with more alarm than she'd ever seen in his normally kindly eyes. In the end the pressure of time – abetted by the arrival of a dozen more walkers at the end of the block – had cut the brief debate short and Andrea had indicated her vehicle by vaulting gracelessly into the driver's seat through the open window with the keys gripped between her teeth.

"I was, yes," he said. These were the first words he'd said to her since emerging from the ruined, stinking house, and she was both struck by and immediately drawn to the depth and clarity of his voice.

"Was?" she asked, offering him another small glance.

"Seems like that's all in the past now, doesn't it?" said Hoffman, still not returning her gaze. He was slumped against the side window, his eyes moody and gleaming and rooted to the road unrolling ahead of them.

"Not at all," said Andrea, smiling in the darkness. "You have to have some faith that this'll pass. We can't be the only people left alive, can we?"

"Unfortunately not," said Hoffman cryptically, his voice velvet, and now he turned briefly. Andrea felt his eyes pick their way across her face for a second, his gaze hot and almost tangible like a lover's caress, and then he returned his attention to the white lines as they flashed and flickered past in the truck's headlights.

"So, here's a question," she said, electing to ignore this strange sentiment for the time being. "If you _are_ a cop, do you know where we can get some more guns and ammunition?"

"I can tell you where the police precinct is," said Hoffman curtly, after a long silence. "Whether there's anything left we can use or whether we can even get in is another matter."

"Better to try than never know, I'd say," said Andrea, warmly. She grabbed the radio off the dashboard and depressed the switch. "Rick? It's Andrea, over?"

"_It's Lori, honey, Rick's driving. What's up? Over._"

"There may be fresh ammo at the precinct," said Andrea. "Detective Hoffman knows where it is. Should we stop by and try our luck before we leave the city? Over."

"_Sounds like a plan to me, but let me sound him out and get back to you. Over and out._"

"Rick's wife," she explained, catching Hoffman watching her closely. "Long story there if you have the time." Andrea laughed nervously; the detective's quiet blue stare had only intensified and had reached the point of discomfiture. She attempted to change the subject solely as a means to deflect that cool scrutiny.

"So who's this Jigsaw guy?" she said, amiably, but regretted the words at once as she felt the air in the truck quietly seize up and then ice over completely. Still, she pressed through. "I guess we didn't hear much about that on the news down south. What was his problem?"

Hoffman spoke slowly and thoughtfully, occasionally closing his eyes for long periods, while Andrea listened in increasing horror. The original killer and his accomplice, he told her, had been dead for some time, while the police had been forced to pursue the killer's second apprentice, a former test subject by the name of Dr. Lawrence Gordon. The traps, initially designed to give their subjects a chance of escape, had descended into little more than arcane methods of torture and execution. Hoffman had been overpowered by Gordon and two masked accomplices and chained up to die in the bathroom where the doctor himself had been tested.

"That's crazy," she said, when the story was over. "How screwed up does this guy have to be to start putting other people in these traps after he's been in one himself? I'd be as mad as hell instead. Wouldn't you?"

This time the silence had texture, and she turned her head. Hoffman was looking at her intently, and when he seemed sure that he had her attention, he indicated his scar with a brief pass of his fingertips.

"I _was_ mad," he said, softly. "I had to rip my own face open getting out of a trap. I had to stitch it up myself, too."

"Well," Andrea told him, after a pause for critical perusal, "you did a good job and you don't look too bad. I've seen worse, and believe me, from this point on _you're_ gonna see worse, too. You use the past tense a lot, by the way. How come?"

As soon as she'd spoken, it occurred to Andrea that the question was somewhat redundant, given the circumstances. It was likely that everyone the detective had ever known and cared for was either dead and gone or somewhere out there, stumbling around the city in search of fresh meat. She herself had had to put a bullet in her own sister's head after she'd died of a walker's bite, and as this memory crawled back up from her mental storeroom she tightened her jaw and squeezed the steering wheel reflexively. Hoffman had already told her what she knew to be the truth: that they had better start their lives over again as best they could at the end of the world.

He responded anyway, and when he spoke she was surprised to hear a new trace of gentility in that gravelly voice.

"I was looking for a second chance anyway," he said, and then lapsed back into silence. Andrea got the distinct impression that these words were less a reply than they were a thought in vocal form. She started to say something, but all at once she was interrupted as the radio crackled into life. She snatched it up, listening intently.

"_T-Dog bringing up the rear,_" said the voice on the radio, sounding strained and apprehensive even through the static. "_I don't want to panic anyone, but I reckon we're being followed._"

* * *

The small convoy drew up by the side of the road and Rick got out of the truck with his rifle under his arm, admonishing Lori to stay put and lock the door after him. Andrea picked up her shotgun and cartridge belt and wrenched her door open too, looking across the street and peering into alleys and doorways, trying to make sure there were no walkers around. The road both turned and narrowed just here as well as being hemmed in on both sides by high buildings, and, while there were a few street lights still working, these did little but cast a great many dense and irregular shadows, any of which could hide a shambling threat. In short, she concluded, they really couldn't have picked a worse place to stop.

T-Dog had been right, though. There was a car pulled up at the intersection behind them with the headlights out and the engine idling quietly. Andrea eyed it warily, but it made no further move in their direction. She half turned and then jumped back, momentarily startled, as Hoffman materialised beside her; he could move pretty quietly for such a big man, she noted.

Rick approached them, jacking back the bolt on the Remington and thumbing in a few more shells. She studied his face in the poor light as he worked; subtle though it was, she noted that his gaze was flicking back and forth between the mysterious vehicle and the detective. Finally, when he'd finished loading the rifle, he slammed the bolt home once more and raised it to his shoulder, squinting down the barrel at the purring vehicle.

"Please identify yourself," he called out.

Andrea's fists tightened in apprehension and she glanced up at Hoffman, who was staring levelly at the car with an expression she couldn't immediately identify. It wasn't fear or hostility but something much smoother – almost expectant, she thought, and then wondered why that particular word had occurred to her. His mouth was set in a tiny, humourless smile and his hands hung loose at his sides.

She saw Rick brace himself as the car moved, the engine revving hoarsely and the headlights flaring, pinning the three of them in a harsh pool of yellow light. It edged forward with a low growl and crossed the intersection, rolling up to them at no more than a walking pace, and stopped some twenty feet away. Rick jerked the rifle slightly.

"That's far enough," he said, his voice low but still commanding. "Please step out of the car."

One of the doors opened and a limber young man climbed out, although Andrea at once took note of his unwilling body language and suspected he'd not so much climbed as been shoved with some considerable force. He held his hands up and approached them in a nervous sidelong slouch, rounding the hood of the car and walking up to Rick, grinning apprehensively.

"Hi?" he said. "Er, hi, yeah. Sorry, we didn't mean to worry you guys, we just didn't know if we could trust you. We don't mean any harm, we were just wondering if we could tag along? Er. I'm Mallick. Hi," he said, and quite unexpectedly held out a hand to Andrea, who looked down and stepped back a pace. That hand was savagely scarred, a knotted purple cicatrix running from between his middle and ring fingers almost halfway to his elbow. Something about it caused a jolt in her stomach and she swung her head around to look at Hoffman for a second.

Only some time later would Andrea remember what she'd thought when she looked at the detective; she'd remembered her grandmother's old nursery tale about the Tinderbox Dog, who had eyes as big as saucers. Hoffman was staring at Mallick in raw, undisguised shock, his eyes wide and startled, and she knew – on the spot and in that moment she knew that much for sure: the two of them had met before.

Her train of thought hit the buffers at some speed as Rick lowered the rifle and nodded at Mallick, moving in front of her to take charge of the situation.

"We'll be happy to take you with us," he was saying, "but first I'm thinkin' I'd like to talk to whoever's in charge of your group." He left the rest of the sentence unspoken, but Andrea heard it well enough in her mind. It was abundantly clear that whatever else he was, Mallick was not a take-charge kind of man. In the interim she looked back at Hoffman, but that startled expression seemed to have fled in favour of something ghostly and unreadable.

Mallick turned, still smiling nervously, and beckoned at the car. Two more doors creaked open and the remainder of the party got out and walked around into the headlights. One was a teenage girl with long honey blonde hair in slack braids, dressed in a grimy sweatshirt and jeans. Her eyes were dark and serious, and it did not escape Andrea's attention that the girl cast a coolly appraising glance at Hoffman as she approached.

"This is Diana," said Mallick, attempting to drop an awkward pat upon on the girl's shoulder. She merely sidled away from this gesture and looked him up and down; not with contempt, but with amused pity and a modest trace of contact embarrassment.

The other moved more slowly and thus brought up the rear. It was taller than the girl, but hidden beneath a long, drab hooded coat. The hem of this garment shifted and swung oddly as the figure walked up to them, and she suspected that this was because there was a sword at its belt. The other peculiarity was the silver-handled cane gripped in one gloved hand, which tapped and clicked on the blacktop with each step. It took Andrea a few seconds to work out what was so strange about this accessory, but eventually she came to a conclusion: it was evident that the figure sported no limp or any other disability that would necessitate the use of a cane.

It came to a halt in the headlights and reached up with one hand, pushing back the hood. Behind her, she heard Hoffman loose a small choking sound. Before she could turn to address him, however, he'd brushed past her and moved forward, his mouth opening.

"_Sidney?_"


	3. Chapter 3

Rick stepped forward and laid the barrel of the Remington across Hoffman's chest, urging him back gently but firmly. The detective shot him an aggrieved glare but acquiesced, retreating a couple of steps.

"Hold on now," he said, his gaze shuttling between Hoffman and Sidney as if on a track. "Am I missin' something here? Do you two know each other?"

Andrea had, meanwhile, been studying the woman in the hooded coat. She was somewhere in her early thirties, chocolate-skinned, with close cropped black hair. Her lips suddenly parted in a soft, knowing smile and her wide-set brown eyes shone gently all the while, remaining fixed on the detective without blinking or shifting in the slightest.

"We know each other all right, oh yes," she said, and only now pulled her gaze away from Hoffman, turning her attention to Rick instead. "You're lucky to have him with you, Sheriff," she continued, tilting her head to one side. "Detective Lieutenant Hoffman is one of the finest police officers I've ever known. He found the Jigsaw killer, don't you know?"

"So he told me," admitted Rick, subsiding, looking around at Hoffman. "I apologise for my caution, Detective, but I trust you understand it given the situation. If this lady's corroboratin' your story then I guess everything's okay."

Andrea tore enough of her attention away from Sidney to shoot a sidelong glance at Mallick and Diana. The two were huddling together as if they intended to conduct a private conversation, but if that was the case then whatever they were saying to one another was carried solely through frowns and puzzled looks. Diana half turned her head and seemed to realise, at last, that Andrea was watching them, and her lips thinned.

"Mallick and I attended a Jigsaw survivors' group before all this," Sidney was saying to Rick. "Detective Hoffman interviewed us both and he could not have been more kind. When we heard he'd been taken we thought we might know where he was and," she turned back, smiling at Hoffman, "it seems we were right."

This story was told in a calm and placid manner, and it wasn't until it was done with that Andrea realised she didn't believe a word of it. She stood halfway between Hoffman and Sidney, studying them both in turn, and feeling a powerful crackle of energy in their shared gaze. Where Sidney was perfectly calm and smooth, Hoffman's face seemed to have shut down entirely; he was all rounded eyes and bloodless lips.

"What about this young lady?" asked Rick, nodding at Diana.

"We found each other along the way," said Sidney, smiling fondly at the girl, who – Andrea noticed – returned this affection with a strange, hurt stare but said nothing at all in response.

"I hate to interrupt y'all," said a new voice, "but we got company." Daryl had joined the group in the glare of the headlights, and he was already unslinging his crossbow from his shoulder and hauling back on the string to cock it. He slotted his one remaining arrow into the groove, raised the bow and fired into the dark without ceremony.

There was a strangled gurgle, followed by a thump as something slumped to the ground. Now the group saw what Daryl had already spotted, as four more walkers stumbled into the pool of light cast by the one working street light on the block. One, a female, seemed to be missing an arm, but the rest were fully able and looked much more dangerous. Andrea cursed and reached for her shells, and she watched Rick lift the rifle to his shoulder with an unhappy grimace, but all at once Sidney was stepping forward and gripping the barrel, lowering it once more.

"Save your ammunition, Sheriff," she said, gently. "There's only four. Diana?" She turned, addressing the girl now, who nodded sharply and dodged back around to the car door, braids flying. She reached into the back seat and withdrew a long-handled axe, fixing her small hands on the handle and resting her weight on her toes. Sidney, for her part, merely handed her cane to Mallick for safekeeping and threw open her coat. She unsheathed a length of gleaming tempered steel with a metallic ringing noise, wrapped her fingers around the hilt and made a short, experimental pass.

Andrea turned to Mallick, looking him up and down with naked incredulity.

"What about you?" she asked. Mallick met her gaze with some difficulty and then looked over at his companions.

"Oh no," he said, "this isn't really my, er..._thing_. I find it's best just to let them get on with it." He coughed into his hand and wound down, embarrassed. Andrea favoured him with another astonished stare and then turned back to watch the confrontation unfold.

Sidney skirted the vehicle and approached the first of the walkers, a burly male in what looked like a telephone company uniform. He reached out and tried to take hold of her, but she pirouetted aside with easy grace. When she returned she was bringing the claymore around in a low, wide sweep, catching him across the shins with a dull thud. The walker snarled as the blade opened a wide gash in his leg and knocked his feet out from beneath him.

As he fell, Sidney stepped over him and adjusted her grip on the sword mid-swing, bringing it down vertically and driving it into the back of his neck. He convulsed and issued a spittle-clogged groan, but Sidney merely planted one small foot on his shoulder and wrenched the blade out of his spine. She stepped back and rolled him over with a hard kick to the hip, and when he flopped onto his back she closed in again and drove the sword down with gruesome efficiency, plunging the point into his eye socket and puncturing his brain. The walker twitched and sagged, going limp at once. Sidney yanked the sword out of his head with a sickening squelch and turned on her heel to seek out another target.

The whole thing had taken a mere handful of seconds. Andrea realised that her jaw was hanging open in shock, and closed it once more as she turned her attention to Diana, who was circling the one-armed female walker with a frightening half-smile painted across her sallow face. The walker drooled quietly and then lunged, but met the flat of the axe coming the other way in a vicious jab that smashed her nose open in a startling spray of blood and mucus.

Diana ducked this with a disgusted expression and then rose once more, dodging around the walker, bringing the axe around in a neat half circle and burying the blade in her spine. The walker loosed a high pitched squeal and arched her back, reaching around to the site of the impact, but Diana had already pulled the weapon free once more and now took another measured swing, this one coming in high and slamming into the back of the female's head. Andrea cringed at the strident crack of the creature's skull and watched as the walker pitched forward and shuddered on the road.

Meanwhile, Sidney had dispatched her second target with another stab to the eye, and Andrea clamped a reflexive hand to her mouth as the pair closed in on the one remaining walker, a skinny young male with clotted blood staining his teeth. He growled at them and swivelled to and fro, trying to keep them both in his sight at once, but Sidney merely winked at Diana, then jumped up onto her toes and spun, the sword singing through the night air. It hit the walker in the throat and kept going, shearing through skin, cartilage and muscle, taking his head from his shoulders in one swipe. The watchers scattered as the head rolled into their midst like a random bowling ball.

All, that was, bar one. Hoffman, who didn't seem to have moved, breathed or blinked for the last few minutes, now stepped forward and prodded at the severed head with his foot, turning it around on its axis. Its eyes were still open and its mouth worked soundlessly, tongue flapping and lips painted with its own gluey brown ichor. Andrea watched Hoffman's bland, absorbed expression as he studied the head, and felt an icy trickle run down her back at the sight.

Diana approached the group, her mouth set in a self-satisfied grin. Hoffman raised his gaze now and held out his hand to the girl. She looked for a moment as if she were about to back away, and Andrea saw that her face was registering a difficult blend of surprise and suspicion. Finally she relented and passed over the axe without comment.

Hoffman curled his hands around the bloodstained weapon. Only now did his eyes seem to light up, and he stepped back a couple of paces and brought it down hard, the blade smacking into the head, splitting it neatly in two. The detective grunted with satisfaction as the walker's brains slopped out across the road, and then dragged at the axe, pulling it free again. With this, the spell finally seemed to break.

"Sweet fuckin' Jesus almighty," said Daryl, his voice hoarse. "And my daddy told me all Yankees were pussies..." He tailed off, looking between Sidney, Diana and Hoffman as if unsure which of them deserved the bulk of his terrified respect. He didn't notice for a second that Sidney was holding out her hand to him, and then he shook his head to clear his amazement and looked down at what she was proffering.

"Yours, I believe?" she said. Daryl grinned awkwardly and took back his arrow. He pulled out a rag and cleaned the point, but the action was purely mechanical and his awestruck gaze was still fixed on Sidney. She seemed to ignore this, and turned instead to Rick.

"As you can see, Sheriff," she said calmly, "we won't be a burden on your group. We're survivors in every sense of the word, and we intend to keep on surviving. We would simply like to offer our assistance in return for your company along the way." She reached out and took Daryl's cloth from his unresisting hand and gave the blade of her claymore a cursory wipe. This done, she sheathed it once more and pulled her coat around her.

"Well, we'll be pleased to have you along," said Rick, shouldering the rifle and smiling at her. Andrea stifled a small grin of her own; it was the first time she'd seen Rick smile, really and truly smile, and the expression lit up his face like a pinball machine.

"I remember you," said Hoffman, speaking up at last. He was regarding Sidney critically, his head on one side and a banked fire in his eyes. "My, how you've grown. There was a time you wouldn't say boo."

If this provoked a reaction of any kind, Sidney hid it perfectly well and did not deign to respond to the detective's commentary. She simply adjusted herself, collected her cane from Mallick and nodded at Diana to acknowledge a job well done.

"There'll be some more walkers along soon, I should think," she said, looking around at the group like a schoolteacher confronted with a group of disaffected students. "I suggest we move on before that happens. Thank you for your kindness, Sheriff. We'll talk more later, perhaps," she finished, casting one last indecipherable glance at Hoffman before leading her companions back to their car.

* * *

Diana rounded on Sidney the moment they were out of earshot.

"Are you ashamed of me?" she asked, quietly. She looked up into Sidney's eyes, which were suddenly twin black pools of pain and regret, lined with exhaustion. She did not reply at once, but turned instead to Mallick.

"Drive, please," said Sidney, tossing him the keys across the hood of the car. "Diana and I need to talk. Into the back with you, child."

When they were settled in the back seat and Mallick had pulled the car out at the rear of the convoy, Diana opened her mouth to protest but found her lips stopped fast by one soft fingertip.

"No, honey," said Sidney, gravely. "You need to listen to me for a bit. If I know Detective Hoffman as well as I believe I do, he'll have told these good people a little story of his own by now, and if I know him, he'll have blamed everything he possibly can on your father. Now they know he's a cop, they'll only accept his version of events all the better."

She sighed slowly, reached out and stroked Diana's hair for a moment.

"He does _not_ hold all the aces in this game, trust me," she went on, "but we need to play very carefully for a time. Meanwhile, it's for the best if none of our new friends finds out your last name." Sidney finished and sat back, watching her.

Diana curled up, bringing her knees up beneath her chin. A small tear quivered in her lashes and she swiped at it.

"I'm proud of him," she said, her voice low but defiant, as another sparkling tear formed on the heels of the first. Sidney shifted closer on the seat and folded her in warm, tender arms, rocking her a little and pressing a kiss to her forehead.

"I know you are," she whispered.

"I miss him," said Diana, her voice dissolving into a sob.

"Me too."


	4. Chapter 4

In the end, Rick had got on the radio and told the group that it would be too risky to attempt to search the police precinct in the dark, and so they'd set off through the city to find a place to set up camp until dawn.

Andrea, for her part, found herself with a lot of thinking to do, and so she drove in silence for a while, following the sullen crimson glow of Rick's tail lights, as her brain ticked over. Beside her, Hoffman remained in his own private pool of quietude, his eyes closed, and she half suspected he might be asleep until he finally exhaled harshly, dragged his palms down his face and turned in the seat to study her.

"I worry you, don't I," he said. There was, quite conspicuously, no question mark at the end of the sentence, and Andrea struggled with her tongue for a while, debating several possible responses of varying degrees of honesty.

"For several reasons, yes," she admitted, eventually.

"Which are?" he asked, his tone perfectly civil. Andrea hesitated again, aware that she had not, in fact, worked out the specifics for herself. All she knew was that she was replaying, over and over, the cold sparkle she'd seen in his eyes when he'd laid hands on the axe. It wasn't cruelty; she'd seen that before. It wasn't pleasure. It was something else entirely.

"What's the deal with you and Sidney?" she asked, eventually, and turned to stare him down as he opened his mouth to respond. "The _real_ deal, please, Detective. I saw the way you looked at one another."

He subsided, and Andrea turned her attention back to the road for a few moments to allow him space, but out of the corner of her eye she could see him raise his hand to his face, touching his scar, almost absent-mindedly. Finally he sat back and sighed.

"Okay," he said, softly, "but I don't want the others to know about this just yet, because I might be wrong. Just before Lawrence Gordon took me out of the picture, I'd been investigating the survivors' group after I found out that _he_ was the one who started it. I had a hunch that he was using it to try to recruit others."

"So, wait," said Andrea, slowly, picking her way through the newborn realisation, "you think Sidney and Mallick coulda been helping him? I _have _to tell Rick, Detective. They could be dangerous."

"_No_," said Hoffman, firmly, fixing her with a stare so pointed that she quailed. "I'll take full responsibility for this. There's no point in scaring everyone until I have some evidence, and the fact is that Sidney and that kid are going to be quite an asset to the team. As I said, I'm probably wrong. The Sidney Harris I remember was a spineless little mouse who wouldn't say shit if she was swimming in it. She's changed – _fuck_, has she changed," he laughed, hoarsely, "but haven't we all?"

Andrea had to concede the point. Their motley band had all been through hell and back in their own private ways before they'd found one another, and most of them had had to watch loved ones die or, in some cases, been forced to kill them themselves. _All_ of them had killed walkers. Not, it was true, with such cold detachment as she'd just witnessed, but with the apocalypse being upon them, she did not feel she had the right to pass judgement on how others dealt with it in the privacy of their own head. Besides, Hoffman was correct: they had clearly found two people who would prove eminently valuable to the group's survival.

"Look, Detective –" she began, but Hoffman stopped her. "Can you call me 'Mark'?" he asked, very quietly. "It feels like it's been a long time since I've heard anyone else say my name."

"Mark," she said, giving him a sorrowing glance, "you're askin' me to lie to my friends."

"Just give me some time," he insisted. "Please? If you still feel this way in the morning then by all means go with your instincts, but until then, I'm asking you to trust me even if you have no reason to do so."

It was a consummately poignant plea, and Andrea felt herself warming to it in spite of the bizarre situation. She was also forced to admit, in a moment of crucial self-examination, that she had found herself instantly attracted to Hoffman the moment she'd laid eyes upon him, and that this attraction was growing stronger as she explored the nature of the man beneath. Perhaps, she mused, it had simply been far too long since she'd had a man take her to bed, but as she drove she found herself glancing down at his hands at odd moments and wondering what they might feel like on her bare skin.

"Who did you lose?" he asked her, gently.

(_Amy, __I'm __sorry...for __not __ever __being __there_)

"My little sister," she said, blinking to forestall the tears she expected to form, but this time there were none. She swallowed a cold, dead weight of grief instead and fought the urge to turn her head, fearing what she might see in his eyes.

(_I __always __thought __there'd __be __more __time_)

"You had to kill her, didn't you," he said. Once again, he posed her a question that wasn't what it seemed, and since she understood that he already knew the answer, she didn't respond. Instead, she finally looked around at him to discover that she'd been right all along. His gaze was filled with soft empathy, and now Andrea felt a sting in the corner of her eye. She sank her teeth into her tongue for a second in an attempt to dismiss it.

"Don't you have any family?" she asked. "There must be _someone_ you're worried about. We could help you find 'em."

"There's no-one," he said. "I had a younger sister, too, but she was murdered a long time ago." He paused, head sinking back, throat convulsing for a moment. "A lifetime ago, it feels like," he said. "The motherfucker who killed her eventually ended up getting cut in half in a Jigsaw trap."

"Did that help?" asked Andrea. She hadn't meant to phrase the question so clumsily, and for a few moments she worried about the brooding, silken silence from the seat beside her. She was about to frame an apology when he spoke up again.

"No," he said, staring through the darkened windshield, eyes unfocused. "I tried to convince myself that it did, and for a while I managed to fool myself, but no. Right here and now, with everything that's happened, I can't believe my own lies any more."

The radio hissed, and Andrea picked it up from the dash.

"_Okay, __folks_," said Rick, "_looks __like __we __might __have __found __ourselves __a __pretty __good __hidey __hole __for __tonight, __but __tool __up, __get __inside __quick __smart __and __stay __alert __anyway, __okay? __Over __and __out._"

She eased up on the gas as the brake lights flared ahead of her and followed Rick's truck through a narrow opening in a high chain link fence. The ground ahead was uneven and and the vehicle bumped across it for a second, but then it levelled out, she swung the truck around and the headlights splashed across a low, dreary building with a solid-looking steel door in the front. The only peculiarity, she now saw, were the ragged strips of yellow police tape that fluttered from the edges of the doorway like grim pennants.

Switching off the engine, Andrea smiled bravely at Hoffman, collected her ammo and jumped out, studying the name on the front of the building.

"A meatpacking plant, huh?"

* * *

The electricity still seemed to be functioning, and the lights in the workshop hummed softly before brightening. Rick stepped through the door, rifle at the ready, and swung the barrel around the room, his breathing slow and even. Andrea followed him through, her shotgun loaded and cocked but held down at her side for the moment. After a few seconds she saw his shoulders settle and he lowered the weapon, turning to her with guarded relief in his eyes.

"We should check the cellars before we settle down," he said, keeping his voice low, "but I suggest we get everyone else in here for safekeepin' before we do." Andrea nodded and turned back through the door, beckoning to the rest of the group, counting them through as they walked by. It had long since become second nature to check that there were no stragglers.

She took Carol and Sophia aside as they passed, and laid a hand on Sophia's shoulder as the child looked up at her with considered care.

"Are you okay, Andrea?" she asked.

"Sure, honey, I'm doin' fine," she said, as brightly as she could. "Why do you ask?"

"That man looks scary," said Sophia, and her thin little face puckered up as she spoke.

"Oh, baby, it's all right," Andrea insisted, stroking her arm. "Mark's a policeman, just like Rick and Shane. He looks bad because he has that nasty scar and he's been shut up in a cellar for a while, that's all."

"Sure," said Hoffman, from behind her. "I scrub up real nice, I swear." Andrea started a little, then stepped aside as he hunkered down and looked the child in the eye. Quite without warning, he cracked a wide, friendly smile. "You don't need to be afraid of me, I promise," he said, and crossed his heart with an exaggerated gesture to emphasise the point. Sophia stared at him owlishly for the space of a few more seconds, blinked once, and then burst out laughing, the sweet, piping sound echoing through the empty space.

Andrea caught Carol's eye. The woman's lips were pursed and her eyes narrow with concern, but Andrea understood that spending almost fifteen years with an abusive, drunken husband was bound to have poisoned her perception of half the human race; besides, it was regrettably true that Hoffman did look more than a little Neanderthal in his current state

As if reading her mind, he stood up and watched Carol usher her daughter away with a backward glance, and then leaned in to address her, _sotto __voce_.

"I hope the water pressure's still good," he said, his mouth close enough to her ear that she felt his warm breath fan her cheek. "Guess I should get cleaned up if I'm frightening the ladies, huh?"

Andrea turned her head, but he remained as close as before, and all at once she was conscious of the scent of him. It wasn't as bad as she'd thought it might be, but there was something fundamentally animal about it, a heady mix of sweat and pheromones and blatant sexuality.

"Well, now, Detective" she said, trying for her best Scarlett O'Hara impersonation, "you don't frighten _all_ the ladies..."

A polite cough swung her head around, and she stepped away from Hoffman, flustered, as if she'd been caught doing something sinful. Were it not for the difference between a thought and an act, she mused, that would have been the case.

Rick and Shane were standing close, studying the pair of them carefully.

"I think it's time we checked the rest of the building for walkers, Detective," said Rick. "This here's my deputy, Shane Walsh." Hoffman and Shane exchanged a brief, cautious handshake, and then Shane held out a gun belt and a fully loaded Smith & Wesson .38.

"I'm sorry, I know it's probably not what y'all are used to," he said, apologetically, but the detective nodded his thanks and took it graciously, buckling it around his waist and adjusting the holster at his hip.

"It'll do fine," he said, with a disarming smile. "I trained with these at the Academy."

Rick started through the door to the cellars, and then turned back, a frown plastered across his drawn features, as he saw Andrea shouldering up her ammo belt. "Just where d'you think you're going with that?" he asked, evenly. Andrea, taken by surprise, stopped, her arm sagging back to her side.

"I thought we were checking the building?" she asked.

"Yes," he told her, calmly. "_We _are," he went on, pointing at himself, Shane and then Hoffman. Andrea's jaw shifted in shock, and then she finished putting on her belt, her movements sharp and defiant. When it was straightened to her satisfaction, she planted her hands on her hips and glared at Rick.

"Oh, I'm _so _sorry," she said, venomously. "I didn't realise it was _men's _work all of a sudden. I'll just get back to paintin' my nails, shall I?" She looked at Hoffman, who appeared to be genuinely embarrassed on her behalf but remained silent.

"Andrea, it ain't like that and you know it," said Rick, sounding very old and tired all of a sudden. "It's not men's work. It's _cops'_ work." This said, he ducked his head away from her angry gaze before she could strike back at him, nodded at the others and followed them out of the door, slamming it after him. Andrea opened her mouth but, eventually realising that it would be an exercise in futility to argue with a closed door, shut it again.

When she turned around, she found Sidney watching her, head on one side and dark eyes full of solemn appraisal.


	5. Chapter 5

Diana found herself at something of a loss; it seemed to her that the adults around her were either engaged in private business of their own – she glanced across the workshop to where Sidney was deep in conversation with Andrea – or too afraid of her to want her hanging about. She admitted to herself that she probably shouldn't be carrying the axe around with her, and that it really didn't help put others at their ease in her presence; but in a very short space of time, the axe had become one of her best friends and most treasured possessions and she was loath to let it out of her hands, let alone her sight.

She'd watched Hoffman put on the gun belt with undisguised loathing, one hand tightening instinctively around the haft of the axe, fighting the urge to cast caution to the wind, charge at him and bury the weapon in his head. The man had the survival instincts of a sewer rat, and in spite of the undeniable logic of Sidney's argument to the contrary, Diana was struggling to understand why they should refrain from warning the group about him. Meanwhile, he'd inserted himself into their midst with casual ease, and now he was armed as well.

Nobody seemed to be paying her any attention. She ducked through a nearby door, pushed aside the plastic strips that lay behind it, and found herself in what had clearly once been a sickroom. There was a bare steel gurney there, several instrument trays and an empty drug cabinet. She knew well enough what this building was, and came at once to the conclusion that she was standing in the room in which John Kramer had breathed his last.

At least it had been mopped up in the interim, for which she was grateful; there was no telling what effect it would have had on the group to walk in here and see blood-splattered walls and sheets stained almost black in the low light. The room was, in fact, scrupulously clean, and she mused that it was only a pity that the surgical instruments had also been removed. Diana was not one to waste a handy blade.

She stepped closer to the gurney, one hand moving of its own accord, reaching out to trace a path across the cold, shining surface. She had never met John. Oh, she had asked, to be sure – every so often she would request a chance to meet the man about whom her father spoke so often without ever saying anything meaningful, but each time he would simply offer her a small, sad stare and shake his head by way of reply.

A slight movement behind Diana had her turning on her heel, hefting the axe to shoulder height, the action pure reflex, but she subsided at once as she saw four wide eyes watching her warily, and then two children pushed through the plastic strips, hand in hand. The little blonde girl she'd seen not long ago in Hoffman's company; the child was now clutching a shabby cloth doll that looked very well loved indeed. The boy, a couple of years younger, was regarding Diana with a slightly mutinous expression written across his freckled face.

"Whatcha doin' in here?" he asked. "My daddy said we should all stay together."

"Your daddy's the Sheriff, is that right?" asked Diana, smiling and setting the axe down on the gurney with a faint metallic _click_. "You should be proud of him."

"I am," said the boy, nodding, though his expression remained sober. "Where's _your_ folks?" he asked, catching her unawares; this was not a question for which she had a well-rehearsed answer or, indeed, any answer at all. She was well aware that anything she said to these curious youngsters might well be repeated to their parents with that inconvenient accuracy of recall displayed by all children, so with that in mind she elected for a pared-down version of the truth.

"My mom left us a long time ago," she said, simply. "I don't know where she went because I never saw her again after that. My dad died recently."

"My daddy died, too," said the girl, her voice melodious but husky. "He got bit and died and then Daryl took him away and I didn't see him no more."

It would have been better if the child had cried, Diana thought; as it was, this small, sad little story was related with no more passion than she might have shown during Show and Tell. It was true that the girl's little white fingers had tightened convulsively around the rag doll as she spoke, but other than this, her eyes were wide, solemn and quite bereft of tears.

"I'm Diana," she said, sitting down cross-legged on the floor. "Can I see your doll? She's really pretty." The girl hesitated fractionally, but then stepped forward and handed over the toy.

"My name's Sophia, and that's Carl," she said, and then sat down beside Diana with a bright, focused expression on her face. Carl remained near the door, however, and was still eyeing Diana with a degree of suspicion that, in spite of the situation, bespoke a degree of self-possession that she had to admire in one so young.

"Well," said Diana, "it's nice to meet you both. I'm sorry about your daddy, Sophia."

"I'm not," said Sophia, and now she reached out and retrieved her doll from Diana's suddenly slack grasp, clutching it close to her skinny little chest. "He used to hurt me and my mommy all the time and I'm glad he's gone."

Diana looked around at Carl for confirmation, seeing that her own shock was reflected in his shadowed eyes. In spite of the childlike language, the girl had spoken with raw, adult vehemence and each word had been edged with razors.

"You shouldn't say things like that," said Diana, but realised at once that her mouth was operating on automatic, and that it was no more than a platitude. Her hindbrain said: _Why __not? __Sounds __to __me __as __if __she's __right. __Fucker __deserved __that __much __and __worse __besides._

"It's true," the girl was saying, now using the doll less as a comforter than a shield, though her eyes were still bitter and defensive.

Diana looked from Carl to Sophia, and back again, and simply couldn't think what else to say.

* * *

"What's wrong, honey?"

For a few seconds, Andrea couldn't think how to express herself. It was obvious that Sidney had been eavesdropping quite tactfully for a while, but somehow, Andrea couldn't bring herself to be annoyed about this. Part of it was because the usual social rules had to be given leave under such cramped living conditions, and another part was because there was such honest concern in the other woman's gaze that it would have been extremely churlish to call it into question.

"Oh, you know," she said, flapping a vague hand at the door. "All of a sudden it seems I'm just the little woman around here. I _know_ men pull this kinda crap all the time, and to be honest I'm not surprised at Shane even though I won't otherwise hear a word against him, but I really thought Rick was a little better than that."

"I can see you have the necessary courage," said Sidney, with a small, winsome smile. "I wouldn't worry too much about the gallant Sheriff's motives towards you. He means well, anyone can see that."

Andrea stood back to look the other woman over for a moment. She was replaying her earlier conversation with Hoffman and wondering what to make of it all. It was evident that Sidney was something quite out of the ordinary and had displayed a rare proficiency about the process of killing walkers, but whether she was capable of the insanely murderous acts assigned to the Jigsaw killer, Andrea couldn't be sure. At such close quarters, the idea seemed surreal, and yet...in spite of his latterly expressed doubts, for a second, she'd heard such brutal conviction in Hoffman's voice as he spoke.

"Is there anything I _should_ be worrying about, though?" she asked.

"You mean besides the army of flesh eaters roaming the city?" said Sidney, suddenly all imp-eyed innocence. "I think that's quite enough worry enough to be going on with, don't you?"

"Believe me," retorted Andrea with a short laugh, running a distracted hand through her hair and grimacing at the lank texture of it, "that is the _one_ factor in this whole situation about which I'm perfectly clear, but won't you please get to the point?"

"Priorities is my point," said Sidney, and she half turned over her shoulder and nodded at the small group of survivors, busily unrolling sleeping bags on the far side of the workshop. "They're your whole life now, am I right? As they've looked out for you, so _you_ need to look out for _them_, too."

Andrea followed the other woman's gaze and regarded her adopted family for a moment.

"I _do_ look out for them," she said, eventually. "D'you think I don't?"

"I think you're in danger of getting distracted from your common cause, yes. I have _eyes_, Andrea," said Sidney calmly, stepping closer and laying a warm, kindly hand on her shoulder. "I know how a woman can look at a man, and if you'll take my advice you'll steer your poor heart clear of Mark Hoffman."

Andrea's head was spinning. She was tired, overwhelmed and, most of all, under siege from a sudden, primeval attraction to the saturnine detective, upon which she hadn't expected to be challenged so soon and by someone she'd only just met. She couldn't even begin to fathom Sidney's train of thought or the way her mind seemed to skip from this to that with no clear connection.

(_Detective __Lieutenant __Hoffman __is __one __of __the __finest __police __officers __I've __ever __known_)

"He's a good man," Andrea insisted, remembering these words clearly. "You said so yourself."

"He's a _brave_ man," replied Sidney carefully, and now her expression was grave and guarded. "This I don't deny, and I know you've seen in his eyes that he's not afraid of anything or anyone in the whole world." She looked down at her hands for a second, folded over the silver handle of her cane. "However, that courage was born in a dark place, believe me, a _very_ dark place indeed. It's an animal, and sometimes, especially when they're in pain, animals just don't watch who they bite."

The words resonated like a bell. Andrea started to respond, and then stopped. She recalled Hoffman's tale about his sister's murder and what had befallen her killer, and she'd filed it away at the time, but now she paused to subject it to further scrutiny. It had clearly brought him close to the case. _Too __close, __maybe? _There was a level of professional detachment that was just too much to ask of anyone with human feelings, and she conceded that the physical scar on his face was not, perhaps, the worst one he'd sustained.

"Andrea," Sidney went on, her voice soft but relentless, "I know you're listening to me if only with half an ear because I can tell you're a smart woman. This is not about Detective Hoffman, for whom I have only the greatest respect in spite of my cautions. This is about _you_. Do you think I don't appreciate how lonely you are?" She angled her head sadly. "Believe me, I do, but this is not the way to fix that."

Something about these words, and their tone, struck a chord with Andrea and she studied Sidney closely once more. She was just as focused as she'd been all along, but she was still gripping the ebony cane like a lifeline, her knuckles shading to pale, and all at once, understanding sprung upon Andrea fully formed.

"You had to kill someone you loved, too, didn't you?" she asked, quietly. She watched surprise flower in Sidney's steady, unwavering gaze, followed by a species of cool admiration.

"You're as sharp as I first thought, that's for sure," Sidney replied. "I did, yes. Someone I loved very much indeed. He was bitten by a walker when he tried to protect me even though I didn't need protecting, 'cause that's just the nature of good men.

"He said he didn't want me to watch him turn, so he held me tight and gave me his walking cane to remember him by, then he got down on his knees and he looked at me so kindly I thought my heart would break."

She hesitated now, drawing a deep breath, and Andrea saw a tear. One single ripe, shining tear that gathered in the corner of her eye but steadfastly refused to fall.

"And then," Sidney went on, eerily calm, "I drew my sword and I cut off his head."


	6. Chapter 6

Rick pressed his back to the wall and then ducked his head around the corner, the Remington cocked and held high.

The cellars of the plant were not only abominably cold, but also murky and labyrinthine. There were lights set into the walls, but these were both dim and dirty and did nothing but accentuate the shadows. He dropped the weapon, lifted his flashlight and shone it down the corridor, but there were no signs of movement. He exhaled gratefully and nodded at the others.

"All clear," he whispered, and stepped out, heading down the passage. Several steel doors led off it at intervals, and he tried one at random, finding it locked.

"This is a creepy fuckin' place," said Shane, studying their surroundings with the faintest taint of trepidation. Rick nodded in quiet agreement and tried another door, with the same result. He stopped at the third door, however, and shouldered his rifle with a wary frown, taking a step forward and playing the beam of his flashlight over the mottled, peeling surface.

"'Here's your chance'?" he asked, repeating the phrase painted across the door in straggling scarlet letters. He glanced over his shoulder, studying Hoffman for a second, then drew back and kicked the door in, hearing the rusty hinges howl in protest.

The room beyond was mired in darkness, and Rick reached into that gloom with some care, hand searching for a light switch. His probing fingers eventually closed on a likely suspect and he flipped it, stepping back a pace as the lights flickered uncertainly before coming on.

It did not in fact make that much difference; the room was still largely cloaked in shadow, but there was enough light to illuminate the contraption that stood in the middle of the floor. Rick's brow furrowed in surprise, and then he jerked his head at the others and led the way through the door.

"The hell is this?" he said beneath his breath, running his gaze over the thing. The foundations had been crudely constructed from two girders, which were welded together to form a cruciform structure, but beyond that utilitarian structure he now saw a lot of fine detail. There were two sturdy leather straps bolted to the crosspiece, and two more lower down. He studied the gears on the ends of the mechanism and his jaw sagged a little as a gruesome conclusion crept up on him by inches. He stood in thoughtful silence, processing this inescapable deduction for a while, and then rounded on Hoffman.

"Start talkin', Detective," he said, evenly. "I saw the police tape on the door and I let it go, but now I want some answers: what _is_ this place?"

"Jigsaw crime scene," said Hoffman, bluntly, his eyes straying to the Rack and then shuttling back to Rick just as quickly.

"I see," said Rick, mulling this over, his lips pursed. "You didn't think it worth mentioning?"

"_Look_," Hoffman told him, keeping his voice low and guarded, "I just didn't want to spook anyone. You want everyone else finding out what happened here? Ten people died in this building in one night and I barely got out alive myself, but that was a long time ago. The killer's dead and it's as safe a place as any."

"I don't deny that it is," said Rick, his eyes still brooding, "but I'd have appreciated some honesty upfront, that's all. Until today I'd never heard of this Jigsaw fella, and then I happen across _you_ and all of a sudden it seems I'm up to my neck in it all and standin' in the middle of a slaughterhouse."

The air burned between their locked gazes for a moment longer, until Shane defused the tension by stepping into that overheated gulf.

"Come on, Rick," he said, placating, "it don't matter what went on here and I happen to agree anyways. You tell people about this and you're only gonna scare the kids, and where's _that_ get us? Let's just finish lookin' the place over and get back upstairs. Aside from anything else, I could use something to eat."

"Okay," Rick exhaled, wearily. "Suppose you're right, but I want this door shut behind us and nobody else goes wanderin' around down here, clear?"

Hoffman offered Shane a thankful nod and followed the others out of the room, pulling the door closed until the latch clicked. He walked alongside Rick in silence, his hand on the butt of the revolver, until something about the Sheriff's slight sidelong glances preyed upon him and he eventually returned one with a polite if slightly pointed stare.

"So, what happened to you here?" asked Rick, seemingly unabashed at being caught in this clandestine study. Some way ahead of them, Shane investigated another side door with considered caution, edging into the room beyond with his gun drawn, and Hoffman took advantage of this to pause and prop his shoulder against the wall before speaking.

"I was put in a trap with a fellow officer," he said, watching Rick's face for his reaction. "He died and I only just got out in time. We also lost another cop at the scene. It was a fucking bloodbath," he finished, shaking his head grimly.

"I'll bet," said Rick, nodding. "Was that how you got your face cut up?"

"No," said Hoffman, and now he almost laughed. "That was thanks to the _second_ trap I ended up in," he added, and proceeded to describe the mechanism of the Reverse Bear Trap and how he'd fought his way out of it at a steep physical cost. Rick's expression did not undergo a particularly drastic change as he listened to this account, but when it was done with he looked the detective up and down with modest admiration in his eyes.

"Looks like your friend Sidney was right," he said, wryly. "You've a pretty big pair of balls on you for sure."

"Thanks, I think," said Hoffman, smirking in the shadows.

Shane emerged from the door, angling his head at the room he'd been searching.

"Looks like we got us another trap in here," he said, and then vanished back through the doorway. Rick watched him go and then turned back to Hoffman, his gaze level.

"Anything you wanna tell me afore I take a look in there?" he asked, quietly.

"Actually, this one's pretty self-explanatory too," replied Hoffman morosely, setting his jaw and following the Sheriff through the door.

* * *

Andrea looked up in the middle of unpacking supplies and caught sight of Diana as the girl emerged from a door on the far side of the workshop, with Carl and Sophia in her wake. Her eyes narrowed as she watched Mallick step over to the teenager, say something low and indistinct and try to lay a calming hand on her shoulder, but the girl shrugged him off with an economical gesture that suggested that she was only restraining herself from a much greater display of pique in front of witnesses. Mallick half turned his head anyway, as if to check that this had passed unnoticed, and then reached out again and clamped his hand around Diana's upper arm, ushering her back through the door with his lips set in a narrow, pale line.

Andrea started with concern, and was considering following the pair when the door behind her banged back and Rick and Shane stepped through. She hesitated for a fraction of a second, then gently fielded the Sheriff as he passed her.

"Look, Rick, I'm sorry about –" she began, quietly, but he raised a conciliatory hand to stop her. "No," he said, "I'm the one who's sorry if I put you down. I shouldn'ta made you feel as if I don't appreciate what you do. I know you've got guts, God knows I do."

She'd had a whole speech prepared, and would have felt bad about seeing it go to waste if not for the warmth in Rick's gaze. Even so, there was something she felt needed saying, if only to clear the air once and for all.

"You have a lot on your mind, what with lookin' out for Lori and Carl," she said, trying to arrange her words with the utmost care. "I'm not offended if you feel protective, honestly I'm not. I'd much rather that than the alternative."

She watched Rick's face carefully for a moment, waiting for a response. He was not, she knew, a man given to impulsive reaction, and this was no different. Eventually, his eyes softened and he offered her a sad little smile.

"Times like this bring out the best or worst in everyone," he said. "How're you doin' yourself, by the way?"

Andrea, caught unawares, couldn't think what to say. She was aware of an undertone in the question, that was undeniable, but it was barely there and she couldn't be sure of its provenance. Still somewhat bewildered from the strange conversation she'd had with Sidney, she decided to keep it brief.

"I'm okay," she said, trying to look as if she meant it. "Just damned tired and feeling like I got run over."

"You and me both," he said, ruefully, "but that's not what I meant. Something's different. Are you sure you're all right?"

_No, _thought Andrea. _I'm not. I'm deeply disturbed by the folks we picked up, in ways I can't even articulate, and all of a sudden, all I can think about is Detective Hoffman even though he frightens the hell outta of me as well_. This thought flicked across her mind like a startled fish, there and gone before she knew it. It wasn't that she'd even remotely considered giving voice to this sentiment, but she nonetheless forced it back down with an effort of will.

"I'll live," she said, instead. "Things'll probably look a lot better for a little hot water, if you want the truth."

Rick was still watching her quite deliberately, so it was with some relief that that probing scrutiny was broken by Carl, who had wandered over and tugged at his father's sleeve. Rick turned, reached down and ruffled the boy's hair, causing him to shy away and smooth it down once more with an irritable swipe.

"What's up?" asked Rick, fondly.

"Mom says she needs you," said Carl, simply.

"Okay, go tell your mama I'll be right there" said Rick, watching his son returning to the group on the far side of the workshop. He dropped his gaze for a moment, and then looked back up at Andrea.

"I reserve the right to be concerned about you," he said, softly. "After what happened to Amy I know you had one heck of a time gettin' back on track. If I'm honest, for a while there I thought we was gonna lose _you_, too."

Something seized hold of Andrea at that moment, and she leaned in and planted a moist, affectionate kiss on his cheek, quite heedless of the prickly stubble there.

"You're a good man, Sheriff Grimes," she said, as he stared at her in mild surprise, raising a hand to his face, "and I'm glad I met you."

He seemed honestly flustered by this spontaneous show of gratitude, let alone the overly enthusiastic kiss, and covered it by fidgeting uncomfortably with his rifle for a second before pushing it behind his shoulder.

"Did you say you wanted to wash up?" he asked, recovering a scrap of composure and provoking no end of wry humour in her in the process. "There's a sluice room of sorts back down that way, so far as I saw. Hopefully there's some hot water runnin', too, if we've power."

"Ugh, I hope so," she said, wrinkling her nose and glancing down at herself. "I am _not_ feeling too ladylike these days and I swear I'm carryin' passengers."

Rick laughed.

"You look just fine," he told her, "but if you need to take a few to freshen up nobody's gonna mind. I'll go see about gettin' some food sorted out. Even though it ain't exactly _men's _work," he said, with a good-natured grin.


	7. Chapter 7

"What's got into you?"

Diana turned her back on Mallick, folding her arms. She knew it was a childish gesture, and she didn't like it one bit, but it gave her time to think, which was something she couldn't do with him staring at her like that. He was suddenly all persistence, however, and stepped around into her field of vision once more.

"You're acting like a brat, you know that?" he said, though his expression remained carefully neutral.

"Fuck you," she told him, through a trembling sneer.

"Nice, _real _nice. Okay," he said, raising both hands in mock surrender. "I give in. Let's hear it."

"Hear what?"

"Your plan," he said, calmly. "I assume you have one, or you wouldn't be so cocky. So what do you think we should do?"

He was right. She didn't have a plan so much as a hot, spiteful little pool of mental images centred around her single overriding instinct: to put an end to Mark Hoffman's miserable existence. She resented having to breathe the same air as the detective, let alone being prevented from carrying out the wish her father had expressed in the last moments of his life by the two people she'd always trusted would understand a desire so profound.

"My plan?" she said, keeping her voice in check. "We kill Hoffman. Sounds like a good plan to _me_."

"Fine, I can see where you're going," said Mallick. "Then what? Call me crazy if you want, but I don't think these nice people are going to take too kindly to us after we've cut him to pieces." He paused, sighing heavily. "Diana, you have to face facts here: the country, hell for all we know the whole _world _is overrun with walking corpses. Don't you think that changes our priorities?"

_No,_she wanted to scream at him. _It __doesn't. __If __anything __it __makes __them __more __important __than __ever, __because __that __means __we're __the __last __ones __standing __between __Hoffman __and __more __innocent __lives. _Instead, she said: "You know where we are, right?"

Mallick looked at her with a little patience and a lot of exhaustion.

"Tell me," he said, flapping a weary hand in the air and hanging his head.

"This is where it all ended," said Diana, indicating the room with a broad sweep of her arm. "John Kramer and Amanda Young died here, in this room. Hoffman murdered them both. Not directly, but he caused it. The bastard poisons everything around him, because it's all he knows how to do. He needs to _die_, Mallick!"

She turned away, disgusted, into Sidney's impassive stare. The woman stood with her hand on the latch of the door, poised but not, it seemed, tense, and when she was sure she'd subdued the teenager with that unremitting silence, she turned to Mallick and raised her chin.

"Leave us," she said. Mallick hesitated, then caught Sidney's eye and dodged past her. When he'd left, she closed the door behind him and returned her attention to Diana, who saw that that gaze had sharpened in the meantime.

"I thought we'd discussed this," said Sidney, her voice low and steady but nonetheless snapping like a whip, and Diana fought the urge to shy from it and then steeled her nerve and stepped closer to Sidney, shoulders shaking with suppressed emotion.

"No, we didn't," she hissed. "You discussed it and I listened. I've been doing nothing _but _listening for a long time and I've had enough."

Half a second later, she wanted nothing more than claw at the air between them and drag those words back. Sidney's lips twisted and she closed the distance between them, circling the girl like a predatory cat, her arms folded and her fingers clamped hard upon her own flesh. Diana stood in the middle of that circuit, her head sagging and her lip quaking in spite of her every effort to remain in equilibrium. She closed her eyes as Sidney came to a halt behind her and reached out, laying both hands on her shoulders and leaning close to speak into her ear.

"Do it," said Sidney, the words edged with clear ice. Now those gentle hands turned her around, and she opened her eyes once more. Sidney was reaching down, lifting the axe from the gurney with the painful scrape of steel on steel. She held it out now, urging it on Diana, her eyes slanted and strange.

"Kill him, then," she insisted. "What are you waiting for? Take it, go with my blessing and cave in his skull if that's what you really want." She thrust the weapon forth again, pressing the handle against Diana's chest.

"The others..." said Diana, weakly.

"What of them?" Sidney retorted, her words slicing the air. "If this is what you know is right, what does it matter who watches? Do it!"

Diana shivered miserably. She looked down at the axe, then back up at Sidney, and then she fled.

* * *

Andrea walked into the sluice room with her head down, and thus didn't immediately realise that it was occupied. When she looked up, she was about to speak out, to stammer an apology, and then her words died in the back of her throat just as a furious pink flush seized hold of her cheek. She sealed her lips again and edged back into the shadows of the doorway, her blue eyes wide, her expression rapt and her heart suddenly pounding so hard that she felt her pulse skipping in her throat.

Hoffman evidently hadn't seen or heard her, and she blushed even harder in the gloom as she watched him. He had stripped to the waist, and she ran her eyes over his broad, gleaming shoulders. He was a little on the heavy-set side, although he carried it extremely well. Nonetheless, she could see plenty of firm muscle gliding beneath his skin as he moved and there was no denying that he was powerfully built.

He ran a cloth beneath the hot water faucet and then squeezed it out, sluicing himself down with a soft, appreciative gasp that sent a salacious tingle racing down Andrea's spine. Even from the doorway she could see everything clearly and in pin sharp detail. As the detective shook his wet hair like a dog she saw tiny beads of water sparkling in the hair on his chest, and knew that her subconscious would carefully file away this gorgeous image for later retrieval.

_What __the __hell __is __wrong __with __you, __girl, _she asked herself, though she continued to stare without feeling too great a burden of shame. _You're __not __a __horny __teenager __any __more __and __this __shouldn't __be __turning __you __on __so __much_.

"But it is," she whispered to herself, then bit her lip, watching Hoffman run the soaking cloth over the back of his neck and studying the gleaming rivulets of water as they ran down the smooth planes of his back.

"Whatcha doin', honey?" said Lori, softly, from behind her. She glanced through the door and her jaw sagged. "I..._oh_. Oh, I see now," she said, turning back to Andrea, mouth curling into a knowing smirk and hazel eyes twinkling with mischief. "Why, you harlot!"

Andrea's face was now almost scarlet. She seized Lori's elbow and hustled her away from the door.

"It's okay for _you_," she said, struggling to contain a nervous laugh and keep her voice down at the same time. "You've got Rick. Me, I ain't had any in so long now I'm startin' to forget how it goes! 'Sides, don't tell me you weren't looking just now..."

"Window shoppin' ain't no big thing, babe," said Lori, slapping her playfully on the arm, "and I gotta admit he's a handsome brute. Hell, you go for it."

Andrea's pulse quickened as she heard the water being turned off, and she shoved at Lori's shoulder.

"Will you get outta here?" she hissed, desperately. Lori offered her one more lascivious wink and then darted back into the shadows with what sounded for all the world like a schoolgirl giggle. Andrea heard her close the door just as Hoffman leaned out of the doorway and regarded her curiously. She knew she was standing a discreet distance from the entrance and had to hope that the light was low enough to cover the worst of her blushes, but she nonetheless watched his eyes for a second for the slightest suggestion that he might be aware of her silent affections, let alone the fact that she'd just been making puppy dog eyes at him in secret.

"Hey," he said, a shade awkwardly. "Do you know if any of the other guys has a razor?"

"Huh? Oh, right," said Andrea, managing to to put his words into context at last. She bent down, extracted a pearl-handled straight razor from her boot and handed it to him. She watched him blink twice, clearly astounded, and this provoked some unanticipated amusement on her part.

"Talk about being prepared for anything," he said, with a lopsided grin. "Only thing is..." he tailed off, hefting the razor uncertainly. Understanding eventually ambushed Andrea.

"Let me guess. You never used one of these before?" she asked. He shook his head, now clearly embarrassed. "No problem, I'll show you," she said, taking it back and indicating the sluice room. Her flush had now faded altogether, and some glowering remnant of what had been a very proper upbringing indeed sat in Andrea's head and watched her helplessly as she followed him back through the doorway. She knew she was being shockingly forward and that this was most unlike her, but at one and the same she felt quite powerless to prevent it.

She stood aside as Hoffman soaped his beard. He turned to her, indicating his efforts with one hand, and she nodded.

"You'll do," she smiled, and then moved closer, raising her hand. For a heartbeat she hesitated, unsure where she could drop her touch that wouldn't seem fiercely provocative, and settled for pressing her fingertips into the fine, damp hair at his temple and turning his head gently to the side.

"Not that it needs sayin'," she told him, "but hold _real _still now." Andrea laid the edge of the razor against his jawline and heard him gasp, and he stiffened imperceptibly; she was suddenly, horribly aware that with everything he'd been through, the detective was probably not too happy with someone else holding a blade to his face. She checked her hand until she felt that instinctive tension unwind a little, then drew the razor slowly and smoothly up his cheek.

"There," she said, reassuring him, as her hand traced out a second smooth curve. "See? Easy as pie." She kept her hand as steady as she could, her faint quivers forcibly subdued by the awful prospect of spilling his blood. Nevertheless, she was acutely conscious of the heat of his body, still steaming slightly in the chill of the room, just inches from her own.

Andrea turned aside for a moment, rinsing the blade in the basin with a brisk splash, then set about tending to his throat. Once again she heard Hoffman's breath whistle painfully as the cold steel touched his flesh and she hesitated as she'd done before, waiting for him to relax, then continued her ministrations.

She worked in silence for a while and then nodded to herself, judging that she'd done as good a job as possible, and stepped back, laying the razor aside. Her hands felt as if they were tingling where they'd inadvertently lit here and there upon his warm, moist flesh, and she folded her fingers together to keep them occupied as he wiped the remainder of the foam from his chin and turned back to her, his expression carefully composed.

The change was both startling and appealing. Without the scruffy beard Hoffman seemed younger, more polished and – somehow – much more dangerous, likely because the scar, already livid, now stood out in painful contrast. She could see it in gruesome detail; it traced a cruel zig-zag path across his face, almost reaching his ear. Andrea tried to picture what that wound must have looked like when it was fresh, and then cursed this thought at once and studied the remainder of his freshly exposed features instead, thinking them a curious but somehow compelling mismatch between a very masculine jaw and a surprisingly sensual, full-lipped mouth.

"So, what do you think?" he was asking her with the barest of puzzled frowns, and now Andrea was aware that she might have stared either a fraction of a second too long or a touch too avidly.

"Very nice," she said, in a lame attempt to smother everything that had just passed through her mind as if on a ticker tape, and then remembered herself, summoning as good a cover story as she could concoct at such short notice. "Anyhow, I just came round to tell you we're fixin' some dinner, if you'd like?"

"Thanks," said Hoffman, smiling gratefully, but she saw that this did not quite reach his eyes, which remained analytical, holding her own as if trying to communicate something below the threshold of human perception. She cut that mesmerising hold only with the greatest of difficulty and turned to leave the room.


	8. Chapter 8

Andrea couldn't bring herself to eat much, and this was for two closely connected reasons. One was that events as they had unfolded in the sluice room had struck her to the core and affected her far more than she'd initially suspected, snatching at her gut and causing an occasional stab of nausea that, curiously enough, she did not find wholly unpleasant.

The other was that she wanted to focus on Hoffman as intently as she could without being observed in return. Of the new arrivals, he alone was being gently and sporadically interrogated by the rest of the the group as they ate. It was clear that they'd relaxed significantly in his presence now that he looked a great deal less primitive, and this in turn seemed to be reflected in a particulate thawing of Hoffman's own demeanour. However, Rick had swiftly quashed any detailed discussion of the murders with the children being present, so the questions were necessarily somewhat random.

"So, Sheriff," said Hoffman eventually, adopting a small smile and leaning back against the wall behind him with an air of faint exhaustion, "what brings you all the way up here?"

"We were trying to get away from the worst of the outbreak," said Rick, with a small, one-sided shrug, his other arm being occupied by Lori, who was leaning affectionately into his side. "Looks like it spread real fast, 'cause we weren't runnin' ahead of it at any point."

"Why didn't you head west?" asked Hoffman, and Andrea thought to herself that his conversational style was far more cop than casual, but kept this little observation firmly on the inner side of her head.

"We talked about that, sure," put in Dale, who'd so far remained silent as he put more effort into his food than his curiosity. "I said it might be better to go north instead, maybe try for Canada..." He tailed off, and Andrea saw something unhappy in his eyes, but elected not to subject it to further scrutiny. She was aware that he, too, had taken Amy's loss very hard, and she tried her best not to raise the subject, no matter how vaguely – but then she backtracked, sensing that this was not what bothered him right now. Unlike the others, she still saw a cautious flicker in his gaze whenever he looked at Hoffman, which she attributed to Dale's well meant but sometimes overbearing desire to protect her.

"I don't know exactly when it broke out up here, of course," said Hoffman, "but there had to have been more than one point of origin. The whole country in three weeks? No way."

"Detective," said Daryl, lazily, from his perch on a nearby workbench, "with respect, you ain't yet seen how this thing works in the real world. We _have_."

"How quickly do the bites kill?" asked Hoffman. _Definitely in cop mode_, thought Andrea.

"Depends," said Daryl, rocking one hand in the air for a moment to illustrate his point. "If they're tough, it ain't too bad of a bite and they don't bleed out, maybe three days?"

"Then I'm right, three weeks is far too quick," said Hoffman, firmly, and then something appeared to occur to him. "You came up from Atlanta, right? Did you try the CDC?"

An uneasy frisson ran through the Georgia survivors, almost as if rehearsed. Andrea felt it just as acutely, but composed herself as quickly and quietly as she could, and bravely decided to take on the unhappy burden of the explanation.

"We did, yes," she said, lacing her hands nervously in her lap, holding Hoffman's clear gaze only with considerable effort. "We found just one survivor, and he couldn't help us. When the power died it set off some automatic decontamination mechanism and the place went up in flames. We lost one of our friends in there."

She sagged a little, hoping against hope that he would not press her for further details, not wanting to describe how Jacqui had willingly elected to stay behind to die and, most of all, not wanting to tell him that she had come within an inch of making the same bleak choice for herself. She had looked down at her squirming fingers when she finished speaking, and now she raised her head once more. Hoffman's eyes were dark and sombre.

"I'm sorry," he said, and that seemed to be it, although he studied her for a second longer than seemed strictly necessary under the circumstances. He apparently chose not to press the matter any further, though, and turned back to Rick. "Okay, what about Fort Detrick?" he asked.

"Way ahead of you, Detective," said Rick, running a tired hand down his face so hard that his fingers left brief red streaks on his pale cheek. "We decided to pass by there 'fore we got here."

"And?"

"We saw it burnin' from twenty miles away," said Daryl, who had meanwhile set to cleaning his crossbow with what looked very much like forced concentration, and did not even glance up from this task as he spoke.

This seemed to put paid to the discussion, which had gone from bad to worse in the space of a bare few minutes. Andrea understood that Hoffman was only trying to be proactive, but it was soon going to take a toll on the group's morale if they had to keep marking off a list of their losses and failures for the detective's benefit.

For some undefined reason, in the middle of this thought she'd cast her eyes across to Sidney, who sat cross-legged on a bedroll and did not seem to have moved for quite some time. Mallick was beside her, his legs drawn up and his chin sunk into his chest, staring at the floor between his knees. Diana lay with her head on Sidney's shoulder and her shadowed brown eyes out of focus, and Andrea saw that the two were holding hands in the narrow space between their bodies. Not with simple fondness, though – more with the tight and desperate grasp of those who each feared losing the other to the abyss.

As if feeling Andrea's gaze falling upon her skin, Sidney's head turned a fraction and she nodded. Nothing more; she simply dipped her head just once, as if presuming that Andrea would read into this gesture whatever she felt it necessary to rally her friends. It was a mysterious act but, somehow, it worked perfectly. An idea slipped into the back of Andrea's mind and she turned, rooting in her bag for a moment.

"I don't know about anyone else," she said, flourishing a bottle of Wild Turkey, "but _I _could sure use a drink."

* * *

The liquor seemed to work a small brand of magic, and after Lori and Carol had put their respective children to bed, the circle reformed in a much more relaxed atmosphere. To Andrea's relief, the two groups also seemed to be loosening up and making a better peace with one another. There was one small moment of unease and a short debate when Diana held out her hand for the bourbon, but T-Dog gamely stepped into the breach.

"Go on now, it ain't gonna hurt," he said, and smiled encouragingly at the teenager. She returned this with a grateful nod, took the bottle and tipped it back, swallowing a slug of the fiery liquid. She gagged wretchedly, and then wiped at her streaming eyes with the back of her hand.

"Told y'so," said Shane, clearly amused by this, taking the bottle from Diana as she waved it desperately in his general direction, still coughing. He took a hit of his own and passed it along to Rick, who gripped the neck of the bottle and stared levelly at Sidney, his lips moving silently for a second as if trying to rehearse what he was about to say.

"Okay, I just _gotta_ ask," he said to her, "where in the blue hell did you learn to handle a sword like that?"

The entire group turned to look at Sidney, all at once extremely interested in this topic of discussion. Andrea turned her head for a second and saw Hoffman leaning forward, too, dropping his chin into his palm and curling his fingers around his mouth, alive with attention. Sidney bore up stoically under this sudden scrutiny and gave her new-found audience a bright and generous smile before replying.

"I simply picked it up and used it. It's not as hard as you'd think," she said. "It's all a matter of balance. You get that right and it'll find the target on its own. Besides," she went on, with a meaningful sigh, "the first time I had it in my hands I _had_ to learn fast. There were three walkers coming at me."

"_Three?_" asked Carol, her voice quavering; it was the first thing she'd said in a while. "Lord, what on earth did you do?"

"Well," said Sidney, looking at the other woman with a mischievous twinkle in her eye, "lucky for me, they were all standing in a line..."

There were a few shared glances, and then the room rang with laughter.

"Okay, I didn't do that," she admitted, to the tune of this much-needed merriment.

Andrea returned her attention to Hoffman. She could see that there was a species of amusement there, but whether it had anything to do with the rest of the group, she couldn't be entirely sure. His gaze was still fixed upon Sidney, and in spite of what looked like a perfectly good-humoured gleam in his eyes, she shivered briefly.

"How did you catch the Jigsaw killer, Detective?" Andrea's head whipped around. Diana, who had been staring at her own lap for some time, apparently deep in thought, had spoken up at last, and her question sliced through the residual fellow feeling like a scalpel. Andrea's lips parted a little as she saw that what was painted largest on the girl's face was something that looked very much like cool malice.

"You don't want to know about that, sweetheart," said Hoffman, coolly, giving this last word the tiniest pitch and spin, as if he meant it as a casual barb – or, perhaps, a cold warning to proceed no further.

"No, I really do," said Diana, smiling and propping her head on her hand in a gesture that might, under any other conditions, have bespoke nothing more than girlish innocence, but instead seemed calculated to provoke. "Come on, I heard you were a hero."

"Then you heard wrong," said Hoffman, and now his features solidified entirely. "I was in the wrong place at the right time, and I got out of that trap by accident."

"Why were you being tested?" asked Diana. Andrea watched Sidney's eyes darken as she laid a gentle restraining hand on Diana's arm, but this was neither acknowledged nor heeded and the teenager merely continued to stare the detective down, her gaze razor-edged, seemingly without the slightest apprehension of the gathering unease she was generating amongst the others.

"Who said I was being tested?" said Hoffman, evenly. "The game was meant for Officer Daniel Rigg, and he failed. If I hadn't managed to escape, I would have been fried."

"You seem to be quite a lucky man, Detective," said Diana, her eyes sparkling as if frosted. "I don't think anyone else managed to get out of _two_ traps, did they?"

"If _this_ is what you call lucky," replied Hoffman, angling his head to present his scar. "Personally, I don't think we're using the same dictionary."

Andrea, who had been watching this bizarre subtextual fencing match with a blend of bewilderment and concern, watched Diana prepare another jab, but at that moment Sidney tightened her hand on the girl's wrist. Not hard, just hard enough, and this seemed to silence her.

"Let him be, Diana," she said, firmly. "It's been a long day for us all and this isn't the happiest of subjects for any of us, now is it?"

"Well, as much fun as this little chat's been," said Daryl managing to keep all but the barest traces of sarcasm out of his tone, "I confess I gotta hit the hay." He stood up, stretching and scratching a sudden inch of bare belly quite unselfconsciously, and ambled away to find his sleeping bag.

"That sounds like a good idea all around," said Sidney, squeezing Diana's hand. Andrea was about to drag her attention away from the pair when she hesitated, and thus caught a glimpse of something that, in a way she couldn't fully qualify, chilled her to her marrow. Sidney lifted that hand to her lips and placed the softest and most delicate of kisses on the girl's pale skin. As gestures went, it was loving, almost motherly, and there was nothing about it with which she could find fault. It was the spark in Sidney's eye as she did so that disturbed her.

It was a look that seemed to say: _Don't you _ever _do that again_.


	9. Chapter 9

The night did not pass easily for Hoffman.

He woke in the final watch, convinced that something had brushed across his face as softly as the wing of a butterfly, but when he raised his hand to that small patch of sensation, there was nothing there, and the room was cloaked in smooth silence aside from the sound of his own heightened breathing.

Hoffman was sleeping was in what had once been the holding cell, which was now bare save for the faintest, tiniest trace of its old scent, and that much had not been a deterrent after the stagnant reek of the bathroom. He had simply bundled up a blanket and laid on the bare floor, and was asleep within moments.

Until now. He scrubbed at his itchy cheek and moved, rolling over onto his knees and then springing to his feet with curious grace for his size. The door stood open, and one of the weak lamps in the corridor was washing second-hand light into the cell. Under the circumstances, it did not provide enough illumination to reassure him, and he stepped to one side of the door and ducked his head around it as cautiously as possible. The corridor itself seemed a little brighter; enough, at least, to convince him that it was innocent of life. He swung around and repeated the procedure, but the far end of the passage was also clear. He frowned deeply, then sidled out of the doorway.

There was a subtle squeak – somewhere in the distance, a door had shifted slightly on its hinges. He angled his head, but with the echoes in the cellar, there was no way of knowing which direction it had come from. He elected to return to the stairs and climbed them as quietly as he could.

The workshop was not in darkness; there were one or two battery lanterns glowing here and there, just enough to give the shadows texture. As he stepped through the door he reacted a little, seeing someone beside it, but it was only Shane, who had taken sentry duty and now sat with his lean frame angled across a steel folding chair, his gun cradled in his lap like a kitten. The deputy didn't seem to have been taken nearly as much by surprise, and merely raised a lazy hand in Hoffman's direction.

"Everythin' okay, Detective?" he whispered, keeping his voice low for the sake of the others, snoozing soundly on the other side of the room.

"Sure," said Hoffman, quietly. "I just thought I heard someone else moving around."

"Nope," said Shane. "Not up here, anyways. You sure you're happy sleepin' down there, by the way?" he asked. "Now me, I'd have trouble, knowing what went on."

Hoffman shrugged.

"I've been with Homicide for sixteen years," he explained. "You get used to it."

"I ain't too sure you're supposed to," said Shane, raising an eyebrow at Hoffman, the implication clear, but the detective merely favoured this with a cool stare. Shane withered a little in the searchlight beam of those cobalt eyes and lifted his hand, hefting the remains of the Wild Turkey.

"Drinking on duty, Deputy?" asked Hoffman, sardonically. "I don't think so." He held out his hand meaningfully, and after a few seconds' hesitation, Shane passed it up. Hoffman downed the last shot and handed the empty bottle back with a nod of thanks before turning away and heading back to the cellars.

The sounds he'd heard remained a mystery, and Hoffman had no intention of going back to sleep until he was satisfied. He edged his way back down the cellar steps as carefully as he'd climbed them, his shoulders tense, and walked past the cell, heading deeper into the bowels of the plant.

As he rounded the first corner he heard a brief, light patter of footsteps, followed by yet another subtle creak, and his brows dropped. He came first to the room where the Rack stood, switched on the lights and edged through the door after first pushing it back as far as it would go. He circled the machine warily, peering into corners, his eyes narrow, but the room was empty.

"_Detective..._"

This time he abandoned stealth, snorted heavily and slipped back out into the corridor, turning back and forth with his hands planted on his hips in furious bewilderment. There was another sound from further along the passage, this time little more than an echo. Just here, some of the lights were out, and short stretches of the corridor were in effective darkness. This did not bode well at all, but Hoffman simply growled to himself and moved on.

He hadn't gone more than two paces further when Sidney melted out of the shadows behind him and swung the flat of the claymore at the back of his legs, driving him to his knees. His reflexes were good, but not nearly good enough; he'd barely begun to turn when she applied a businesslike kick to his kidneys and knocked him flat on his face. He managed to get his hands beneath him before she landed astride his shoulders, twined the fingers of one hand into his hair and tightened her grip to the point of eye-watering pain.

"So nice of you to come," she said, sweetly. "I thought it was time we had a little talk."

"Get the fuck off of me," he snarled, ignoring this pain in his fury and bucking beneath her like a rodeo pony. Sidney seemed content to dig her knees into his ribs for a few moments to maintain her position despite his thrashing, and then Hoffman froze as the point of a knife pricked the vulnerable hollow just behind his ear, denting it just hard enough to make it abundantly clear that that pressure could be increased all the way if it became necessary.

"Hear me, Detective," said Sidney, still in that same even tone. "When I say I don't want to hurt you, I don't want you assuming that means I'm neither able nor willing to do so. How this goes depends entirely on _you_. Understand? Just say 'yes'. I recommend you don't try nodding right now."

"Yes," he croaked, then cleared his clotted throat and spat on the floor in thwarted rage.

"Good," she said, soothingly, and adjusted her position slightly, choosing her words. "Now, I'd like you to take a moment to reflect on what you've learned recently. What do you think that might be?" she asked him.

"Why don't you save us both some time and tell me?" he said, sourly. Hoffman heard Sidney sigh, sounding like a mildly disappointed parent, and the knife was withdrawn from his flesh. He had perhaps two seconds' grace to consider struggling once more before she drove a brutal punch into the nape of his neck and he saw stars.

"_Bitch!_" he barked, past caring if this provoked a second blow, but instead he heard her laughing pleasantly, quivering with good humour and transmitting this through his shoulders. She wound down, tutted gently and reapplied the point of the blade to his ear as if it had never moved.

"I won't be taking that personally," she told him, "and nor should you. I merely wanted to be sure you're paying attention. If you are, you'll realise that I've just given you a clue."

"I don't take things personally," he told her, his head still spinning vaguely.

"I disagree, and so would Jill Tuck," said Sidney, and now there was the faintest edge to her voice.

"You know what she fucking did to me?" Hoffman retorted, tasting the traces of blood that were now leaking into his mouth from his lower lip. For a long time, there was no response to this. When it came, it was curiously gentle in spite of the words.

"She only did what you're supposed to do with rabid dogs, Detective," Sidney told him. "She tried to put you down, and she paid for her failure to do so, because even with your dumb head in a trap and your life ticking away, you still didn't understand, did you?"

Quite unexpectedly, she released her death grip, stroking him soothingly instead, as if he were a beloved pet. The air was so still that the only sound in the corridor was the soft, repetitive rustle of her fingertips through his hair.

"What she did to you was wrong and I don't condone it," said Sidney, "but you killed honest people whose only crime was to come between you and your revenge, you beat and butchered a defenceless woman and you had to pay for that. You never really knew John Kramer at all, did you, honey?"

"Better than _you_," Hoffman grunted. "You never met him."

"I didn't, no," she admitted, "but then, I didn't have to. Everything I know about John, I learned from someone else, and Detective, I had a _very_ good teacher."

"Gordon? Don't make me fucking laugh," snarled Hoffman. He sucked in a sharp, painful breath as she applied a shade more pressure to the knife, and then released it as she drew back again.

"Lawrence Gordon was as fine a man as I ever had the privilege to know," said Sidney, quietly, "but I don't mean him..."

She tailed off, shifting her weight once more, and Hoffman inhaled gratefully as she climbed off his back and moved to the side, her steps quick and light. He stumbled to his feet, shaking his head like a horse to clear the last of the dizziness, and then rounded on her, eyes livid and knuckles white. Sidney shook her head sharply, unsheathed a few inches of the sword and waited until he subsided before sliding it home once more with a soft click.

"...I mean _you_," she finished, and lapsed into silence.

Hoffman's brow furrowed, and he clenched his jaw for a moment, lost for words. Sidney kept her quiet vigil as he ran a distracted hand through his hair, his eyes straying off to the side and his breathing slowing infinitesimally. Finally, he returned his bewildered attention to her and said: "What?"

"You think I didn't know?" she asked. "I know it was you who designed my game. I've known since the first day we spoke."

_...I know this is difficult for you, Miss Harris, but if you can please tell me again what happened after you woke up in the trap, he said. She remained silent, her gaze downcast, but after a few seconds he saw that she was not staring at her hands but at his own, her eyes not far away but fixed firmly on the here and now. He frowned uneasily, temporarily disconcerted..._

"Masks only hide the _outer_ face, Detective," she went on, her voice steel. "So if you've learned anything, you've learned this: I am what you made me, and you brought this upon yourself."

Sidney turned away, dropping her hand from the hilt of her sword, either careless of his anger or aware that it was abating. Hoffman stared at her profile for long moments.

"You were John's greatest triumph," she went on, returning that soulful gaze to him, her lips now barely moving, "and I'm yours."

He raised his face to the darkened ceiling, closing his eyes for a second in thought, and Sidney's hand crept back to her hip as he seemed to uncurl with a violent shudder and then advanced upon her, dropping heavy hands on her shoulders as she stiffened, battling every fighting instinct in her bones.

"So what did I turn you into?" he asked, his voice a dreadful, almost seductive purr in the gloom. "Why did you come here, Sidney? What do you want from me?"

Only now did she step back, and against all expectation he relaxed his grasp and let her go.

"You still don't get it, do you?" she said, her eyes squirrel-bright. "I'm your final test."


	10. Chapter 10

"So that's the precinct?" asked Rick.

"That's it."

"The one with the front door wide open and the walkers wanderin' in and out?"

"Yeah," said Hoffman, now sounding a little beaten up.

Andrea risked a slight turn of the head and studied him for a second. When they'd assembled their modest raiding party back at the plant, she'd stepped up at once, glad that this time she'd encountered no misguided – if chivalrous – resistance to her offer. Sidney had volunteered herself and, seemingly without the slightest pause for thought, had nominated Hoffman too. The detective had cast Sidney a startled glare at being drafted in this cavalier fashion and started to shape a retort, but she had fired back a sharp look of her own that seemed to serve as well as a slap, and he'd merely narrowed his eyes and reached for his gun belt.

The four of them now stood in the pale copper light of a late dawn, huddled beside Rick's truck at an intersection two blocks from the precinct while Rick scrutinised the building through binoculars. He now lowered these with a weary sigh and turned to the others.

"Now, I don't wanna impose this on anyone," he said, keeping his voice steady. "I see maybe half a dozen at the front but there could be a _lot_ more inside. We're takin' a significant risk and it might be for nothing. If we don't all agree, we all go back. Yep?"

Andrea started to speak, then thought better of it and cast her vote by cocking her shotgun one-handed, an action that brought a brief but clearly admiring glance from Hoffman, who drew his own weapon in turn and nodded at Rick before sharing a look with Sidney that Andrea did not miss; they seemed for a moment as if they were sizing one another up. This peculiar moment was gone as soon as it had arrived, however, and Sidney adopted a serene expression and quietly unsheathed the claymore.

Rick stepped back a little, grinning bravely at his determined band. "Guess that's settled, then," he said, and adjusted the brim of his Stetson a little. He seemed to pause for thought, and then addressed Sidney. "You sure you won't take a gun too, ma'am?" he asked.

Sidney offered him a grateful smile, but shook her head.

"No, thank you, Sheriff," she said. "I've little use for firearms."

Hoffman, who seemed to have been lost in contemplation, spoke up. "You got a sight for that piece?" he asked, indicating the Remington. Rick looked down and then back up just as quickly.

"I do, as it happens," he said. "Why d'you ask?"

"Think you could take out a few of them from here?" asked Hoffman, raising an interrogatory brow.

"Could, sure, but won't," replied Rick, smoothly. "If we start shootin' too early, it'll draw others. They seem to know the sound. Damned if I know how," he added, grimly. "With that in mind, I suggest Miss Harris leads the way until we've no choice but to fire on 'em."

Andrea had been watching the walkers carefully. Their movements seemed – insofar as she felt the word could be applied to creatures controlled solely by electrical impulses from the brain-stem – to be purposeful. The road was straight and wide and the visibility clear, and yet she couldn't see another walker for blocks. The only signs of movement were along the sidewalk right in front of the precinct. Her first thought that was that they were –

"Flocking," she muttered to herself, but Rick caught this gave her a quizzical look. "Sorry," she stuttered, "I just wondered how come they're so damned interested in the place, that's all. It's _weird_. Never seen 'em act like that before."

"Blood," said Sidney, quietly, her gaze levelled upon their destination. She stayed this way for a few more seconds, until she finally seemed to apprehend that she was the centre of a great deal of intense study, and turned her head. "I've seen this before, Sheriff, and so have you if you'll recall," she said, holding his gaze. "If not for this you wouldn't have found Detective Hoffman. They'll congregate at scenes of slaughter."

"Don't tell me," said Rick, although he was staring levelly over Sidney's head as he spoke, making eye contact with Hoffman instead, who responded with a short nod and looked away as soon as he had done so. Rick hissed softly between his teeth. "Guy sure kept you busy, didn't he?" he muttered, rolling his eyes just a little.

"Shall we?" said Andrea, inclining her head at the precinct. "I'm gettin' edgy standing in the open."

The party made their way down the hill towards the building, keeping as close to the store fronts as possible to take best advantage of the long shadows cast by the rising sun, which had now burned a hole through the last rags of twilight cloud cover and was gilding the street in earnest. From force of habit, Andrea was glancing into the windows they passed, but most of the glass was smashed, some stores were burned out, and she conceded that what hadn't been looted by now was probably not worth looting at all.

Sidney, as Rick had suggested, took point. She moved with her head up and her sword down, her steps light and even, seeming to be no more perturbed than if she were taking a walk in the park. Only her eyes betrayed any emotion whatsoever, but even then there was no hint of fear; she kept her gaze fixed upon the walkers surrounding the front door of the precinct, and her face was broadcasting healthy apprehension but no evident marks of worry.

Andrea had no such comfort, and felt a rat gnawing at the pit of her stomach as they drew nearer. There were five walkers on the sidewalk. None of them were moving too fast, but she knew that this would change as soon as they were seen. The creatures tended to stumble around fairly aimlessly in the absence of any stimulus, but could move with a shocking turn of speed once they spotted prey.

Hoffman drew level with her as she slowed a little and placed his hand on her shoulder, and she cast him a look that was a mixture of gratitude and anguish.

"You ready for this?" he murmured.

"Nobody's ever _ready_ for it," she said. "You do what you gotta do, that's all." She had loaded her shotgun, but remained mindful of Rick's injunction, and had to hope that she could keep her instincts at bay until the last possible moment.

"Once we get in," Rick said softly, over his shoulder, "we'll bar the doors and deal with any we find inside the building after that. Better than lettin' in any more off the street. Agreed?"

There was a soft chorus of assent from the others. They had now reached the final block, and Andrea was about to brace herself when the nearest walker turned on them. It growled at the group through teeth that were permanently bared due to the fact that its lower lip seemed to have been chewed off. Its milky eyes tracked across them for a second, trying to decide between targets with what little brainpower remained it, and Sidney took full advantage of this hesitation, stepping forward and swinging the claymore back, down and then up again in a precise geometric curve.

The tip of the blade sliced through the creature's throat in a welter of sticky black blood and lodged in the hollow of its jaw, which was brutally ripped away by the force of the upswing and hung by one scarlet, sinewy hinge as its tongue flapped loose in the gory hollow of its throat. It was not clear if this had been a badly judged blow or merely a tactical manoeuvre, for in the next second Sidney had arrested the sword at the apex of its arc and – in a move that seemed to defy the limits of human physiology – brought it back down again just as hard, this time onto the walker's head, cracking it open on impact. The vicious gash swelled with creamy yellow cerebral fluid as Sidney pulled the blade free, and the creature simply dropped on the spot.

Andrea had been keeping an eye on the other walkers, and she started forward as one set its sights on Hoffman with a thick, phlegm-choked snarl. Sidney had also spotted this, however, and she reached into her inside pocket, withdrew an ice pick and tossed it to the detective in one elegant motion. He caught it deftly enough, but before he could react any further than this the creature had slammed into him. It was slightly built compared to Hoffman, but it had the advantage of surprise and he went down on his back with its bloodstained nails clawing at his neck.

"Wait, _wait_," said Rick, his voice strained, seizing Andrea's wrist as she raised the shotgun, the action pure reflex. She watched as Hoffman swung his fist up, driving the ice pick into the creature's ear with a muffled crack as the needle-sharp point of the weapon pierced first flesh and then skull. It went into spasm, and Hoffman managed to twist to one side to avoid the hot splash of blood from its mouth and rolled the twitching corpse aside before getting to his feet, staggering a little as he did so. He was breathing harshly, his cheekbones picked out in spots of raw colour and his nostrils flaring, and he turned to watch Sidney deal with another walker, slicing the claymore up through the sagging flesh beneath its chin and then beheading it quite neatly as it collapsed at her feet.

The remaining two seemed to be hesitating, and for the first time, Andrea began to wonder whether they were starting to learn. The poor unfortunates she'd seen in the first few days of the outbreak had not displayed the slightest inclination towards self-preservation, but if she hadn't known any better she would have sworn that these two had understood what had just happened and were exercising due caution.

If they were, it was irrelevant. Sidney and Hoffman regrouped, regaining their breath, and eyed the pair.

"Which one do you want?" said Sidney, out of the corner of her mouth.

"The little one," replied Hoffman, with a deadly, humourless grin, tightening his grip on the ice pick.

"Cute," said Sidney, almost smiling herself, but then she was charging at the walkers with the sword swinging, catching one on the shoulder and cleaving a ripe, sticky crescent of flesh from its arm, revealing glistening dark meat and a flash of pinkish bone. This time, the stroke definitely seemed to owe a little more to luck than judgement and Sidney reared back to compensate, high stepping onto her toes for a second before recovering her balance and taking much more accurate aim, this time at the side of its head.

Hoffman, meanwhile, hadn't quite anticipated this rush, but he now dived into Sidney's wake and grabbed the remaining creature, turning it around and shoving it up against the wall of the precinct, dropping the ice pick as he did so. Andrea watched, stunned, as he wrapped one arm around the walker's neck and gripped its chin with his free hand, wrenching savagely to one side, snapping its neck with only the slightest grunt of effort. It shuddered in his arms, and when he released his hold on its skull it tumbled to the ground like a broken puppet.

Andrea hurried over to Hoffman, looking him over with some concern as he retrieved the ice pick and returned to the creature's side. Though its spinal cord was severed and its limbs rendered useless, the walker continued to spit and growl at the detective with all of its former blind ferocity. Hoffman merely chuckled softly in return, angled his head with a small and frightening smirk, then rammed the blade through its eyeball and skewered its brain. Andrea heard the soft sound of steel chipping cement, and realised with a twinge of basic horror that the killing blow had been powerful enough to puncture the back of the creature's skull.

The silence echoed now, broken only by a faint scrape as Sidney returned to the others, the point of her sword dragging on the sidewalk for a second before she lifted it a little higher and propped the hilt on her hip. Andrea looked up to catch her eye, but Sidney was gazing intently at Hoffman with what looked curiously like grudging approval. The detective, however, was still staring down at the dead walker.

"Get inside. _Now_," muttered Rick, jerking his head at the open doors. Andrea nodded, and then laid a worried hand on Hoffman's arm.

"Mark, we've gotta get movin'," she said gently. She'd felt him flinch a little beneath that touch, nothing more than a ghostly flutter in his bicep that spoke of a defensive reflex, but then this passed and he stooped to recover the ice pick, pulling it from the corpse's sticky eye socket with the soft slither of optic juices.

This done, he took one last look up and down the street and then followed the others into the quiet, gloomy precinct.


	11. Chapter 11

Once they were inside, Rick slammed home the bolts on the doors and backed away, raising the Remington to his shoulder as a precaution, but the street outside seemed to be clear. Nevertheless, he held his place for a few seconds more before releasing a shaky breath, lowering his arms and studying their surroundings.

The precinct had been wrecked. There were no signs of structural damage to the reception area besides a few random bullet holes in the plaster, but the floor was strewn with a shallow drift of papers and other debris and much of what hadn't been fixed down had been thrown around the place. Almost as if it were an afterthought, he glanced around at the random splashes of blood, both on the floor and on the walls.

Andrea was also looking around. Unfortunate experience had taught her to tell the difference between human blood and that of the walkers, which was both thicker and darker, almost like tar. Most of it seemed to be the latter kind, so the battle had clearly been largely one-sided, and she hoped that this boded well for the security of the rest of the building, but she had to be realistic and admit that there was a high probability that they'd just locked themselves in with at least one walker, if not more.

As if reading her mind, Rick opened the rifle's bolt with a brisk movement, double checking that it was fully loaded, and looked back up to address the group.

"I don't like the idea of splitting up," he said, gravely, "but someone needs to keep watch up here. Detective," he said, turning to Hoffman now, "you know the layout, so it's best if you go find the armoury."

"I'll go too," said Sidney, quickly, and Andrea found herself wholly unsurprised at this, though the strange, fluctuating dynamic between Sidney and the detective was beginning to make her head hurt. Just when she was beginning to form a coherent theory as to their true regard for one another, she would catch yet another subtle exchange of glances between the pair that completely destroyed her newborn conclusions. She was sure of one thing at that point, though: something had happened overnight that had shifted the balance of power in Sidney's favour.

"I guess so," said Rick, after giving this serious consideration during which he looked as if he had his concerns about the idea, "but get back up here straight away if you hear shootin', and I want you both back in fifteen minutes regardless."

"Rest assured," said Sidney, with a sober nod, and then turned to Hoffman. "Lead the way, Detective."

Hoffman turned on his heel and stepped behind the front desk, making for the door to the offices and, from there, the lower levels, Sidney moving in his shadow. There was a body behind the desk and they spared it a perfunctory glance, but after so long it was impossible to tell whether it was a human or a walker; the skin was desiccated and marked with bruises and bites.

The door behind the desk was closed but hung from one badly twisted hinge, and Hoffman shoved it aside only after some expenditure of effort, raising a squeal from the tortured woodwork. The rooms behind seemed to have been spared the bulk of the chaos in the reception, though there were definite signs of a hasty evacuation and, here and there, further streaks of blood, which he paused to examine.

"Bringing back memories?" said Sidney softly, but so close behind Hoffman that he started. By the time he'd swung around to confront her, however, she had turned away with an innocently preoccupied air to examine a framed photograph on a nearby desk, tracing idle fingers over the glass as she studiously avoided his gaze.

"What's that supposed to mean?" he asked, irritably.

"As if you're _that_ stupid," she said, upbraiding him with her words rather than her tone, which remained inexplicably good-natured. "Keep moving, Detective. We're here for a reason, remember?"

Hoffman grunted tersely but kept his tongue in check, settling for jerking his head at the far side of the office. Sidney acknowledged this gracefully and walked past him, heading for the door that led to the stairs.

They found another corpse halfway down the steps, this one clearly much fresher. It was a very young woman, hardly out of her 'teens. She was dark-haired and effortlessly pretty, but below her chin that soft beauty ended; her neck had been horribly mauled by what could only have been the animal savagery of a walker's bite. Half of the white skin of her throat had been ripped back, and the ripe, bloody flesh beneath was gored and gnawed. Whether or not she'd died from this injury, however, was impossible to say, because there was a neat bullet hole punched through her forehead and the step beneath her tangled hair was caked with dried blood and brain tissue.

Sidney descended the steps and turned around to study the body, but Hoffman remained where he was, staring at the girl's face, his breath seemingly snared fast in his lungs. He looked like a man desperate to avert his eyes from the atrocity in front of him but at the same time lacking the necessary will to do so. Sidney, hearing this eerie silence at last, adopted a frown born of sudden understanding then returned to the top of the stairs and took him by the arm.

"Come on now," she said, gently. "We don't have long."

Hoffman finally seemed to break from this fugue with his customary transience, and when he snapped back to the present he freed himself from Sidney's grasp with an ill-tempered tug.

"After you," he said, sourly. Sidney watched him for a few seconds more, then stepped carefully around the young woman's body and headed downwards with the detective trailing after her, his steps light but his breathing heavy.

They reached the bottom of the stairs and found themselves in the central corridor that led to the evidence room, the holding cells and, at the far end of the passage beyond a distant set of neon tubes that were flickering and buzzing ominously, the armoury. All of the connecting doors hung open and, though most of the rooms beyond were well lit, Sidney nevertheless fixed both hands around the hilt of the claymore and braced it in front of her at shoulder height as she moved forward, passing the door to the evidence room and glancing through it.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw that Hoffman had stopped once more, but this time he was broadcasting an air of naked trepidation. Sidney's eyes narrowed and she tilted her head at him.

"So," she said, her voice as sharp and as brittle as cracked glass, "I've finally found the limit of your courage, have I?" She sheathed the sword and turned back, advancing on him. Despite his greater size, Hoffman showed her no fight as she curled one hand into the collar of his jacket and dragged him along the corridor towards the open door. As she shoved him forward, though, he closed his eyes.

"_Look_," she said, coldly, and reached up to apply a firm slap to his cheek. Hoffman did so, and saw that the room beyond was both spotlessly clean and quite empty.

"She's not there," said Sidney from beside his shoulder as he exhaled in harsh relief. "They took the poor thing to the morgue along with everyone else you murdered. Hell broke loose the day after you were locked up." She pulled in a shallow breath and stepped in front of him, locking onto his gaze. "Diana was right," she said, stabbing her finger into his chest. "You're a very lucky man indeed."

Before he could react, she'd turned aside and stalked off in the direction of the armoury, drawing the sword once more with a whisper that echoed off the cold walls.

The door to the room was in darkness, and Sidney hesitated before edging forward, reaching out to try to locate the light switch. She had just managed to close her hand upon it when the walker stumbled out of the gloom and cannoned into her, driving her back against the far wall of the corridor. She didn't waste breath in screaming, but the creature's rush had shoved the blade of the claymore up against her chest, and she whipped her head to the side as the steel flashed past her eyes and clattered against the wall. Not quite fast enough, though; a cut sizzled across her cheekbone and she hissed in pain.

The walker was snorting like a bull, and Sidney gagged as its cold, stinking breath exploded in her face. She wrenched one hand out of its grasp and managed to fix her fingers under its chin, forcing its head back, but the leverage she required for this had upset her balance. Her feet slipped from under her and she fell, the creature's hands moving from her shoulders to her throat and beginning to squeeze. She reached out without looking as that pressure increased, trying to locate the hilt of the sword, but she was pinned against the wall on that side and her fingers fell upon thin air.

Next moment, there was a small, almost unimportant popping sound, and the walker shuddered on top of her, its hands relaxing at last. Sidney's clouded eyes flared once more but then her vision began to clear, and she sucked in a rasping breath as Hoffman yanked the ice pick out of the back of its skull and dragged it off her, kicking the limp body aside with a slight sneer.

Sidney flopped over onto her stomach and slid her palms beneath her, still hauling air in and out of her bruised throat as hard as she could, and then pushed herself up with an almost inaudible whimper of effort, collecting the sword as she swayed to her feet. She took a few seconds more to recover her strength and her composure and then looked Hoffman up and down.

"You could have let it kill me," she said, and the question – if that was indeed what it was – hung on a fine strand in the air between them until the detective dropped a brief shrug.

"Did you want me to?" he asked, and though there was a suggestion of his habitual asperity in the question, this time it was oddly half-hearted.

"Of course not," said Sidney. In the lee of this she raised her fingers to the wound on her cheek; it was not as bad as she'd feared, but there was a slow trickle of blood oozing from the cut and running down to her chin. She dabbed at it with her sleeve.

"That's not the way I do things," said Hoffman, gnomically, but in spite of Sidney's response, which was to subject him to a deeply analytical stare, he offered no further clarification on this comment and she did not force the matter. She stepped back through the doorway and flipped up the switch, bathing the room beyond in brilliant white light.

As they'd half expected, the armoury had been all but stripped, if not by what had remained of the city's police force then by others; the presence of the comparatively fresh corpse on the stairs was evidence enough that others had already been here with the same idea in mind. There were still a few items, though, and Sidney moved along the racks with a practised air, scrutinising the remaining boxes of ammunition. Her eyes lit up on the second row, and she tossed two boxes of shells to Hoffman across the aisle. "For the Sheriff's rifle," she told him.

Hoffman twitched a startled eyebrow at her. "I thought you said you didn't know anything about guns," he said.

"No," replied Sidney, throwing him one final box. "What I said was that I've little use for them. Different thing entirely." She paused, angled her head and reached out, retrieving a heavy Browning 9mm from the rear of the shelf and weighing it in her hand for a moment. Hoffman watched her eject the empty clip and set it aside before checking the action of both slide and trigger with a precise grace about her movements. Finally, she located a stash of hollow point bullets and handed both to the surprised detective.

"It's more _you_, I think," she observed, with a wry little smile, watching him load the clip before shoving it home with the heel of his hand. Then he curled his fingers around the grip, found the trigger, raised the weapon and aimed it at Sidney's head at point blank range.

"Give me one good reason why not," he said, evenly.

"I can do better than that," said Sidney, just as unruffled. "I can give you three." She had not even blinked, and now their gazes clashed along the dull black barrel.

"Surprise me," he said.

"Because you're curious in spite of yourself," she said, "because there's nowhere left to run, and most of all because you need me more than you know." She reached up and pushed the weapon to one side with no more concern than if she were batting aside a fly, then turned and grabbed an empty holdall from the shelf behind her, shoving it in his direction.

"Pack up," she told him, coolly. "We've got three minutes to get back."


	12. Chapter 12

Diana had been unable to relax with Sidney gone.

She'd tried talking to the others, but she'd never found light conversation an easy chore at the best of times, let alone the worst, and in any case she felt as if her words were stifled by a thin but impassable barrier between herself and the rest of the group. The only one with whom she felt any affinity at all was Sophia, but when she'd tried to talk to the child, her mother had made an excuse to intervene and hurry her away.

She was now sitting on the loading dock with the axe across her knees, the cold breeze stirring her hair. Ostensibly, she was waiting for the others to return, but in truth she had needed some fresh air as well, and it was peaceful enough outside. Under normal circumstances there would have been the endless snarl of passing traffic on the interstate just a few hundred yards to the east, but the only thing that now underscored the silence was a solitary bird, somewhere out of her sight, pinking repetitively but melodiously. It was a casual reminder that every other species in the world was blithely getting on with things while the human race slipped toward quiet extinction.

Standing up to ease a sudden cramp in her knees, Diana slung her weapon over her shoulder and headed down the steps to the rear yard. From habit, she slowed as the passed the parked vehicles, glancing between them to make sure nothing was lurking there, but the yard seemed to be clear and she wandered towards the open gate, not thinking anything in particular, just appreciating the solitude and the feel of the weak winter sun on her face.

The road outside was lined with other industrial buildings and outcrops as far as the eye could see, but the area had fallen prey to economic stagnation long before the apocalypse had descended, and she knew that most of them had been abandoned for quite some time.

A scraping footstep disturbed her, and she swung her head, dropping the axe from her shoulder and tightening her cold palms around the handle as she spotted the source of the sound. A lone walker was approaching, stumbling down the middle of the road and wavering back and forth across the white line as if drunk, dragging one foot behind it on what appeared to be a badly smashed ankle. The sun, still low, was behind it and its face was in shadow, but it presented a slight figure and Diana judged it to be a teenage boy, hardly older than herself.

Diana turned around fully now, facing the creature and spreading her feet for balance. She took a closer look at it, and noticed that it had been shot in the stomach at close range, leaving an exposed tangle of blackened entrails that looked on the verge of spilling from the stinking rent in its abdomen. The left side of its face had also been brutally savaged; the bites were clustered around one suppurating eye and she suspected that, due to this, it was half blind into the bargain. Against expectation, she found herself feeling an unaccustomed twinge of guilt at having to kill it.

This pang was not nearly strong enough, however, to negate her survival instincts or her basic common sense, and she lifted the axe up and back, blade held flat and barely trembling, as it staggered closer still. As the creature reached out with one hand, fingers opening and closing blindly, she swung as hard as she could. Her aim had slipped, though, and the blade lodged in the muscle of the walker's shoulder instead of taking off its head as she'd intended.

The force of the impact knocked it sideways and it reeled for a moment, growling and grabbing ineffectually at the axe, but Diana tugged hard on the handle and the blade came free, trailing a long string of glutinous blood. Summoning all her strength, she turned to one side for greater leverage and struck again. This time the blow was true, and smacked into its chest with the unlovely sound of cracking ribs. The walker stepped back, stumbled badly and fell onto its back with a low gasp, its one good eye fixed on her face, and for a second she saw something like supplication there.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, standing over it and raising the axe in both hands.

She was about to bring the blade down on the creature's head when she heard the screech of brakes behind her, followed by the creak and slam of a door. She'd scarcely begun to turn toward these sounds when Rick grabbed her by the shoulder and spun her the rest of the way. When she met his eyes, they were filled with a painful mixture of fear and fury.

"What in the hell d'you think you're doin' out here?" he demanded, shaking her. "Are you _crazy?_" She gasped for air, meaning to speak, but she seemed to have lost the power. It dawned on her that she still held the weapon aloft, and only now did her arms sag. She saw Andrea standing some way behind Rick, her brow furrowed and troubled.

A movement at their feet brought Diana back to the present, and she shook herself out of the Sheriff's grasp and turned back to see the injured walker struggling up, blood gurgling out of its mouth in a steady stream. She swung the axe low, bringing it in sideways and smashing its skull just above the ear. It flopped back onto the road and, as she watched, the blood flow from its gaping mouth slowed. When she was satisfied the creature was dead, she turned back.

"I asked you a question," said Rick, seeming a shade less panicky now, although the difference was marginal. He didn't try to take hold of her again, but he leaned closer, so close that she could see the exhausted pink lines under his eyes. "Why are you outside? Did you leave the door unlocked?"

"I'll handle this, Sheriff," said Sidney, her smooth tone cutting through the tension. She stepped between the pair like a peacekeeping force and handed him a heavy bag. "You'd better get back inside. I'd like a moment with Diana, if you please?"

The implication was undeniable, and, though he clearly remained exasperated, Rick nodded and returned to the truck to drive it back into the yard. Andrea followed him, though not without a few puzzled backward glances. When the truck had pulled away, Sidney fixed her attention on Diana. There was no anger there, but her disappointment loomed large. Diana's eyes flicked to the side, and only now did she see that Hoffman had remained behind and was watching them both from a discreet distance.

"What does he want?" she asked, quietly, but if Sidney had any comment to make about the detective's presence then she kept it to herself. Instead, she reached out and took one of Diana's braids in her hand, running her fingers over her silken hair for a second in a gesture of artless affection before dropping her arm.

"I know you want to prove yourself, honey," said Sidney, her voice steady, "but you can't go _looking_ for trouble and you can't be putting other people at risk like this. Don't we have enough to deal with as it is?"

Diana raised her head, and only now – with her emotions and her hackles settling down – was she in a position to take in the finer detail. There was a diagonal slash across Sidney's cheek, still leaking a fine trickle of blood, some of which had dried in a rough, cracked smear across her skin. Diana's eyes widened as a conclusion burst upon her, but before she could consider the situation rationally her muscles had reacted of their own accord and she lunged at Hoffman, her lips peeling back. Sidney was just as fast off the mark, however, seizing her around the waist and restraining her as she squirmed frenziedly.

"Quit that," Sidney hissed into her ear, her grasp intensifying. "You may or may not be right to think the worst of him, but he didn't do _this_. It was an accident. Now will you please stop fighting me?"

Diana ceased her struggles, although she continued to glare at Hoffman over Sidney's shoulder, pouring into that stare all the venom and spite she had so far been prevented from expressing in either word or deed. She wanted to see him return it; it would have given her some satisfaction, at least, to see her hatred mirrored in his own. Instead, his expression, while it was a complicated blend of many smaller components, displayed no hint of hostility.

"We'll talk about this later," said Sidney, gradually releasing her hold and stepping away to study her with microscopic care. "I'm not angry with you, but it's never been more important that you trust my decisions. Can you do that?"

There was no clear answer; at least, none that Diana could conjure out of thin air, and she had known Sidney long enough now to know that it was pointless to try to lie to her. She did trust her, but that confidence had been badly scarred, both by recent events and by Diana's feeling that she was being left out of something of vital significance. She decided to settle for plain honesty.

"I'll try," she said, keeping her voice low in an attempt to counter the worst of the quiver she felt in it.

"That's all I ask," said Sidney fondly, although to Diana's bewilderment, she shot Hoffman a brief glance as she said this. "Let's get inside now. It's not safe."

* * *

While Rick had taken the weapons and ammunition inside, Andrea had taken a few minutes for herself to stand and watch the others from the shadows inside the doorway.

The three of them were standing at least fifty yards away, but when Diana had tried to launch herself at Hoffman, there was such unbridled murder in her manner that it was unmistakeable even at that distance. Andrea bit her fingers in distracted unease, her teeth continuing to pinch her flesh even after Sidney had intervened to stop the attempted assault.

The ensuing conversation appeared to be over, and Sidney was walking the girl back through the gate with a solicitous hand on her shoulder, though there was little doubt that that grip also served as a continuing restraint as well as a guide. Diana's head was down, and she stared at her feet as she put one in front of the other, moving blindly. Hoffman, meanwhile, followed the pair at a cautious distance, and she could see that he was a little shaken.

Andrea stood back to let them by, but fielded Hoffman as he was about to pass her, closing her fingers on his arm and stopping him in his tracks. She waited until Sidney had led Diana back inside and then turned her face up to study the detective.

This close, she refined her initial conclusion. He was not just shaken, he was shell-shocked; and, though he was covering it well, she had cause to doubt that it was wholly due to Diana's antipathy.

"What was that about?" she asked, trying to be as gentle as she could.

"What do you mean?" asked Hoffman with a textbook head tilt, and as she watched, she saw a guarded shadow creep across his eyes, blotting out almost all hint of his previous expression as it went.

"You _know_ what I mean," she persisted. "Diana looked about ready to rip your head off. She hates you, Mark, I think you know why that is and I wanna know what's going on."

"I don't know what to tell you," said Hoffman, and as hard as she looked, Andrea couldn't see the slightest trace of duplicity in his eyes. She continued to hold his gaze, waiting for a further response, and suddenly she was very aware that she was still grasping his arm, and – more to the point – that her touch had strayed slightly from its original position. She found herself focused on the texture of his skin beneath her fingertips, the fine hair on the back of his wrist and, just here, between his finger and thumb, another cruel scar.

He shifted his weight slightly as she traced this old injury and withdrew from her grasp. Not entirely, though; with one smooth motion, his fingers were suddenly tangled with hers. Andrea jumped, startled, but regretted this at once as Hoffman, clearly misinterpreting her reaction, pulled his hand away as if he'd been burned.

"Sorry," he muttered, and cleared his throat.

It could easily have been an accident, and a cynical little germ in Andrea's mind wondered briefly whether it might also have been a ploy to distract her from a difficult line of inquiry, but she stepped on that thought at once, seeing that he looked honestly contrite and not a little embarrassed. She wanted to say something, was desperate to fill what was now a very uncomfortable silence indeed, but wasn't sure whether to attend to her initial query or this new development. As she was considering her options, however, Hoffman dropped his head and walked away, pushing through the door to the workshop.

"Damn it," she said, quietly.


	13. Chapter 13

"So what happened?"

Diana soaked a clean rag in iodine and pressed it to the wound a little too hard, causing Sidney to hiss between her teeth. She eased off on the rag a little with a silent apology in her eyes and then pulled her hand back. The cut was still bleeding, not quickly but persistently, and she worried for a moment as to how she might stop it.

"A walker took me by surprise," said Sidney, closing her eyes for a second against the sting of the antiseptic solution. "I caught my sword across my face. Damned thing actually got the better of me. I'm losing my touch," she added, her voice husky.

_Please don't say that_, thought Diana, and there was a frightened little kink in that thought. Sidney had always been the strong one in their ill-assorted little tribe; stronger, in some ways, than her father, who had remained steadfast to the end of his life. She admitted, after a brief emotional battle, that her own bravery was an engine powered solely by the need for vengeance, and she was beginning to wonder if it was enough to sustain her. She could no more bear to hear Sidney admit to frailty than she could stand to see her injured. Both were ugly cracks in what remained of her defensive armour.

"How's it look?" Sidney was asking, through a tiny smile. Diana stamped out the embers of her unease and subjected the cut to a moment's critical study, attempting to keep her tone as light as possible in spite of the unhappy news she knew she'd have to deliver.

"I think it might need stitches," she said, though she tried to sound doubtful. Sidney raised a finger to her cheek and dabbled it thoughtfully in a fresh rivulet of blood for a second, and then nodded.

"I believe I heard Mrs Grimes mention a medical kit," she said, calmly, and Diana nodded, hurrying off to fetch it. Sidney waited until the girl had turned her back before wincing and raising her hand to her face once more, this time in honest pain.

"Snap," said Hoffman, from behind her, and she turned into his looming shadow.

"It looks better on you," she said, with a mirthless grin that was quickly stifled as this action opened her wound a little wider and brought a new trickle of blood. Unexpectedly, Hoffman sat down alongside her and picked up the rag, pressing it to her cheekbone. Sidney's finely honed reflexes were a jump ahead of her and she shied away from his touch, but he grunted derisively at her reaction.

"Don't be so fucking stupid," he told her, brusquely, gripping her shoulder to bring her back in line. "Hold still."

She obeyed, though her muscles fluttered just a little beneath that restraining hand and her throat twitched with the effort of self-control. He applied careful pressure to her flesh, mopping up the remaining blood and, finally, staunching the flow a little at its source. Sidney couldn't turn her head to gauge his expression, but spoke up nonetheless.

"It's not too late, you know," she murmured, her voice pitched low but still clear.

"It's been too late for a long time now," he said, all but absently, thought there was a quiet song of some deeper emotion in the words. He removed the cloth from her cheek to inspect the wound, watched another fat crimson bead swell and fall, and reapplied pressure.

"Then why are you doing this?" she asked.

There was no immediate answer, but the hand that still rested on her shoulder, holding her in place, tightened a little for a heartbeat or two before relaxing.

"I wanted to stop," he said, his voice now so soft that she almost missed this.

"I'm sure you did," Sidney told him, "but this is real life, and you have to deal with your responsibilities even if you didn't choose them."

She folded her hands in her lap now as the tension drained from her body.

"Has it really been so long since you found anyone willing to think the best of you, Detective?" she asked, still staring ahead of her, her eyes as round and sober as those of a china doll. She turned her head to the side now, though, reaching up to move his hand aside so that she could look directly at him as deeply as she could. "You've been given a chance to rejoin what's left of the human race," she said, her tone tranquil. "Think on it awhile."

Diana stood for a second in abject silence, watching this tableau, gripping the medical kit so hard that her knuckles threatened to seize up. Her eyes flickered between the two of them, seeing that Sidney's long, graceful fingers were wrapped loosely around Hoffman's, as if something indefinite yet critical had not long since passed between them. The sight poured cold, bitter horror into her gut, which manifested itself as a brief physical pain, like a stomach cramp.

She took a faltering step back as Hoffman swung his head around to look at her, drawing back his hand as he did so. Sidney also turned over her shoulder and Diana focused all of her attention on her expression, but those clear brown eyes offered nothing but fluid depth.

"Give me that," Hoffman was saying. She shook her head dumbly, and watched something like badly tried patience flower in his gaze. "Did you ever sew anyone up before? No, you didn't," he went on, without waiting for a response of any kind, "so hand it over."

Diana, not seeing that she had any other choice, did so, and for a horrible moment was torn between staying put and walking away. In the end she decided that out of duty to Sidney – and because she was not about to give the detective the satisfaction of any other reaction than a cold, unflinching stare – she remained, fixing her eyes upon his hands, watching each and every move they made, no matter how slight.

Sidney turned her head back to centre and bit her lip a little as Hoffman located a curved needle and a length of thread, then cupped her chin in his palm.

"Take it from me, this is gonna hurt," he said, pressing the point of the needle into the soft skin of her cheek until it dimpled.

"Do it," said Sidney, softly.

She drew a deep, shivering breath as he pierced the skin just above the wound, but aside from this, she remained in stoic silence as the thread scratched its way through her flesh. Diana continued to watch him, her hands curled into tight, shivering balls and her nails digging into her palms. Hoffman worked quickly and efficiently, his brow locked into a faint frown and the smallest hint of a mysterious smile playing about his lips. She focused on that hateful smirk, mired herself in it, almost drowning in it, and after a while she felt one clenched fist fill with warm blood.

Finally, with the job done, Hoffman tied off and snapped the thread. Sidney exhaled at last, seeming to be under better control now, and explored the neat stitches with the lightest brush of her fingertips.

"Quite a talent you have," she said, soberly, and then turned to look for Diana, but the girl was gone.

* * *

Diana ran up the stairs, not pausing for breath, ignoring the stitch in her side and the stinging in her eyes. At one point she almost stumbled in her rush and caught at the handrail before plunging onward. Finally, she reached the door to the roof and slammed her palms against it, shoving it open before bursting out into the dazzling sunlight.

Only now did both her emotions and her exertions catch up to her, and she sagged, staggering sideways in exhaustion and slumping against the edge of the door with one hand pulling distractedly at her hair. The sunlight seared her eyes and she closed them for a second, screwing them up to mitigate the worst of the glare.

In the red-lit hell behind her eyelids, she discovered nothing but a vile memory, a recurring, almost kaleidoscopic image of what she'd seen. She scrubbed her palm up her face, trying to wipe her mind with this desperate movement, but all she could see was Sidney, sitting as still as a figurine with her face just a few inches from Hoffman's and his hand folded in hers. The scars thus mirrored – one old, the other still weeping blood – had only served to intensify Diana's fear.

She could stand no more, and opened her eyes once more, finally seeing that she was not alone. Daryl was sat on the parapet across from her, one leg hooked over the other and his crossbow on his knee. He was regarding her with what looked like mild curiosity mixed with a seasoning of concern, but did not seem about to address her. She mumbled an apology and started to turn back to the stairs, but he beckoned her with a loose, easy wave of his hand.

"It's okay, come on back now," he said, kindly. "You ain't disturbin' me none, I just wanted some air." He paused, and moved the bow aside, setting it on the ledge beside him. "You okay?" he asked, his brow creasing a little.

There was, she knew, no pressing reason for her to go back downstairs and several very good ones to stay up here, where it was bright and quiet. She'd sought solitude in which to tend to her misery, but she had a small reserve of practicality within her that pointed out that this would solve nothing, and so she closed the door behind her and crossed the gritty roof, approaching Daryl, shoving her hands into the pockets of her jeans as she walked.

"I'm all right," she said, feeling that she should add some sort of qualification to this, but entirely unsure what else to say.

"That how you usually come through doors, is it?" he asked, but this did not appear to require a response, and she didn't attempt to provide one. Instead, she perched herself on the edge of the parapet a few feet away from him and shook her hair out of her eyes.

"The kids told me y'all lost your daddy not long ago," he said, gently. "I'm real sorry."

Diana shrugged. It was a harsh gesture, and one she hoped would not be misinterpreted as dismissive or uncaring, but nothing else seemed to suit her mood. She softened its impact by offering him a small smile.

"Everyone's lost someone," she said, twisting her fingers together on her knees and giving Daryl a questioning glance. He looked hesitant for a moment, not as if he were reluctant to speak his mind, but rather as if he felt what he was about to say was hardly tactful conversation for someone so young and so recently bereaved. Finally, however, he relented.

"My brother, Merle," he said, eventually. "Rick handcuffed him to a pipe 'cause he was makin' trouble, and he got left behind when the walkers broke in." He released a small breath, no more than an embryonic sigh, before continuing. "We went back for him, but he'd sawed off his own hand to get away."

"That's just –" said Diana, and then bit her tongue to restrain it, stood as she was on the precipice of unburdening herself. She sensed genuine empathy from Daryl, but further to Sidney's warning she knew she could ill afford to reveal her true identity to the group. They were on edge already, and if they knew that she was the daughter of a man Hoffman had undoubtedly painted as a sadistic serial killer, it would put everything at risk. Even so, the parallel gnawed at her. "That's just awful," she said, instead. "Do you blame the Sheriff?"

"I did," he said, hunching his shoulders for a moment in unconscious imitation of her own gesture, "but Rick, well," he looked at her, now sidelong and haunted, "he's a decent guy, y'know?"

She did. Daryl was not the most articulate of men, but she understood well enough what he was trying to say and, what was more, she appreciated how hard it must have been for him to say it. He exhaled harshly through his nose, this much soul-baring having apparently exhausted him, and stood up, reaching for the crossbow.

If he had been about to say anything else, it no longer mattered to him, and his words died in a small, tight-lipped groan. She looked up in the wake of this, just in time to see his eyes widen in shock and his face drain of colour as effectively as if he'd been stabbed. For a second Diana started, but it eventually occurred to her that he was not looking at her but over her shoulder. She swung around and felt her chest contract with painful, panicky horror.

The road was scattered with walkers, and they were all moving in the same direction.


	14. Chapter 14

"_Wait_."

The group had been galvanised by Daryl's report, and Rick had told them to start packing up at once. Before anyone could move, however, Hoffman had spoken up – not loudly, but with an edge to his voice that had all the stopping power of a freight train. Heads turned, first of all to the detective and then to Rick.

Andrea, however, kept her eyes on Hoffman. He'd been leaning in the doorway, watching everyone else with his arms folded and his mouth set in a hard line. Now he stalked out of the shadows and took centre stage, casting a steady glance around the room that came to rest, finally, on Rick. To her surprise the Sheriff didn't even flinch beneath the weight of that stare, but merely angled his head, questioning.

"Wait for what?" he asked. "You heard the news. We're leavin'"

"Right," said Hoffman, nodding in apparent understanding, although his eyes were still gleaming dangerously, "and you're going _where_, exactly?" He paused now, allowing a decent interval for a response, but none was forthcoming, so he continued. "Look," he said, calmly, "the building's secure and we have power, weapons and supplies. We can afford to let them wait outside while we come up with a better plan than running."

The atmosphere in the room soured at once; Andrea felt the metaphorical temperature drop and her skin prickled along with it. She saw a cool grey light flicker in Rick's eyes, one she'd not seen since the first day she'd met him. It was no match for Hoffman's, but she took a moment to admire Rick's defiance in the face of this quiet contest of wills.

"Are you pullin' rank on me now?" he asked, "because we managed to make it this far without you."

"I don't need rank," said Hoffman, smoothly, not rising to this in the slightest, "just jurisdiction. I'm still a cop," he went on, relentless, "and so are you, so why don't you stop and _think_ like one for a second?"

"Hold on," said a voice, and Andrea looked around for the source, seeing that Mallick had spoken up. He'd been loitering in the background, and in truth he was an easy man to miss, but he'd stepped into the space between the two in spite of the fact that his expression strongly suggested that he would rather be anywhere else on earth. He looked badly flustered now that he was the focus of every pair of eyes in the room, and engaged in a brief struggle for control of his tongue.

"He's right," he said, nervously. "We need to work out where we're going. Do you have anywhere in mind, Sheriff?" he asked, turning to Rick.

"We were headed for Canada," said Rick, looking Mallick up and down for a moment. "I don't see any reason to change that."

"That's not a fucking _plan_," said Hoffman, scornfully. "Do you even –" he went on, but was interrupted when Mallick raised a hand in his direction to silence him. Hoffman seemed to shut up out of sheer surprise, looking for all the world as if he'd just been challenged by a sheep. Mallick quivered a little – it was clear that he was terrified of the detective and had just committed an act of unparalleled courage – and then returned his attention to Rick.

"We've been listening to the radio up here since the beginning," he said, and Andrea judged from the uneasy sidelong flicker of his eyes that he remained conscious that Hoffman's appraising gaze was burning its way through the back of his head. "The last broadcast from over the border was twelve days ago, and there wasn't much to it. Just a few reports of heavy infestation in Toronto and Ottawa, and since then there's been nothing but static."

"I gotta say, I agree," said Andrea, surprising herself as much as the others, and she cleared her throat before continuing. "It seems a lot quieter here compared to Atlanta. We should take advantage of that."

"We're in a pretty good position here," said Hoffman. "We're isolated from the rest of the state and there's only a few bridges between here and Toronto."

"Yeah, I was getting to that part," said Mallick, slightly uncomfortably, rubbing the back of his neck and turning to the detective. "Actually, there's none. The Canadians took 'em out in an air strike a couple of weeks ago. They wanted us quarantined. Too little, too late, huh? So anyway," he finished, lamely, swinging his head back again, "if you want to cross the border from here, Sheriff, you're going to be swimming."

"Aw, hell," said Rick, quietly, and almost to himself. He dropped his gaze and unshipped his rifle, setting it aside. He turned and gave the others a weary shrug, watching as they dispersed. Only Lori remained behind, her expression sorrowful, and she twined her hand in Rick's, trying to lead him away. He started to accede to this, but turned back at the last second and stared at Hoffman.

"This is _your _call, Detective," he said. "Whatever comes of it is all on you. Understand?"

"Got it," said Hoffman, nodding curtly. Rick studied him for a moment longer, but eventually surrendered the battle and walked away with his arm around Lori's waist. Andrea watched them go, then sighed deeply and turned around to find that Hoffman was already looking at her intently.

"I hope you know what you're doin'" she said, helplessly.

"Of course I don't," he told her, quietly, moving closer. "That's why it's better if we stay here for now and take the time to work out what we're up against. For a start, what do you actually know about walkers?"

Andrea found it hard to think straight around the detective at the best of times, and now, with him in conspiratorial proximity, she was confounded. She drew a deep breath and bit her lip to focus her badly divided attention a little better.

"Not much, 'sides what we heard from the CDC," she admitted. "Seems it's some kinda virus that restarts the brain-stem after death. They eat human flesh, but we don't know if they _need_ to eat it to survive." She paused, slightly embarrassed. "That's about it, really."

He was even closer now, so close that she could feel the warmth radiating from him and hear the barely perceptible rasp of his breathing. Acting on a baser instinct than those prompted by either of these senses, she inhaled subtly and caught his scent as she'd done before. In spite of the fact that he'd cleaned himself up, it was something far less than human, and for some reason she had a brief mental image of a wolf, panting quietly in the forest. Biting her lip again was simply not going to be proof against this onslaught.

"They breathe, and they bleed when you cut them, so the heart's still beating," said Hoffman, thoughtfully; though she sensed, as he spoke, that he was growing increasingly distant from the conversation. "The medulla regulates both of those, though, so that's not surprising."

"Is that any help to us?" Andrea asked, though she had long since lost her own focus as well.

"Possibly, he said, with only the barest of shrugs, his gaze tracking across her face. "Technically, they're still alive, and if that's the case then there has to be a better way of dealing with them."

"Like what?" she asked, looking up. His eyes were now shining with distraction.

"I don't know," he murmured, with another elegant tilt to his head, "but there's only one way to find out..."

He kissed her. Andrea was taken by surprise once more, but this time she forced herself not to move a muscle, fearful of driving him away again. His lips were warm, inviting and unexpectedly gentle, and she closed her eyes as he curled one hand around the back of her neck, eased her head back and slipped his lithe tongue into her mouth. After a hesitant moment, she responded, placing her fingertips on his throat, stroking his warm skin and feeling his pulse quicken infinitesimally.

As gentlemanly as his kiss was, his touch was far less so. His free hand was suddenly on her breast, squeezing her tender flesh hard enough to make her shudder, then his fingers found her stiffening nipple and pinched it through the thin fabric of her shirt until she let out a muffled yelp. It was a reflexive outcry that owed much more to guilty, masochistic pleasure than to pain, but he pulled back sharply, breaking all contact at once as Andrea cursed her hellishly skittish reactions. Not wanting to hear another awkward apology from him, she thought quickly and intervened to stop him from speaking out.

"It's okay, you didn't do anythin' wrong," she said, feeling her cheeks burning fiercely, which only intensified as she dropped her gaze for a second and saw the slight swelling at his groin. "It was just a little –"

_A little what_, she thought, during the subsequent pause. _How does that sentence end, woman? For Chrissake say something, say anything._

Andrea took a clearer look at Hoffman's face now, seeing that this time, there was none of his earlier discomfort there. She wasn't sure she preferred what had replaced it, though; he was watching her far too closely now and with an expression that suggested she was under examination. It was by no means a malicious look, but something about it made her uneasy.

"Did I hurt you?" he asked, softly, and there was a microscopic spin to these words that left Andrea wondering what he wanted to hear, particularly when it was obvious that he had. She started to raise a hand to her breast, the action only half-conscious, and then faltered. Those beautiful, disturbing blue eyes had flared ever so slightly as she'd moved.

"Yes, but I..." She hesitated again, tripping over her own tongue. She wanted to say that she'd welcomed the small brutality he'd inflicted upon her, but as she ran several possible variations on this theme through her mind, she found that she was deeply ashamed of them all.

"You said somethin' about finding out?" she asked eventually, aware that this abrupt change of subject was both weak and clumsy, but it was in the air now and she had to make the best of it.

"Yeah," he said, nodding slowly and thoughtfully, though Andrea saw in his eyes that she had not managed to distract him entirely from his unsettling analysis. "I've got an idea, but I don't think the Sheriff's going to like it." He stopped now, and loosed a short, hoarse laugh. "He's not going to like it one_ bit_."

Even without that harsh little chuckle, she found this statement extremely disquieting. In a very short space of time, she'd found out that the detective was not a man who afforded too much credit to the opinions of others where it concerned his actions. If he was even _aware_ that his idea was not going to sit well with Rick, it had to be at the upper end of extreme.

"Whatever it is, I'm sure he'll at least hear you out," she said, trying her best to defend Rick in his absence. "He ain't an unreasonable guy."

"Not yet, anyway," said Hoffman, darkly. "I want to take a closer look at one of these things."

Andrea was suddenly prey to the nastiest suspicion as to the direction of his train of thought, but she decided to press on as if she wasn't, and just hope to hell that she'd done Hoffman a great disservice with her assumption.

"Well, happens that they tend to thin out a little in daylight," she said, nodding. "Maybe we can go fetch that corpse on the road outside when the sun's high enough." Even as she said this, though, she watched him shake his head grimly, and as she stared at him, her mind filled with fear as dull and suffocating as an oil slick and she knew that her instinct had been right.

"I mean a _live_ one," he said.


	15. Chapter 15

Sidney sat in silence, her head down, running a whetstone along the edge of the claymore as she listened to the heated discussion going on a few yards away. To the casual observer she would have seemed completely absorbed in her task, but her ears were pricked and she was, in spite of appearances, paying a great deal of attention to what was being said.

In truth, the only thing that separated the debate from a full-fledged argument was the fact that nobody had yet raised their voice, but it could only be a matter of time. Sidney raised her eyes briefly as she heard Hoffman grunt in annoyance, and then returned her gaze to the blade.

"You are outta your god-damned _mind_," said Rick, running a distracted hand through his hair. He was still shocked at the enormity of the detective's proposal, so much so that he was actually smiling in disbelief, but this was fading fast as he started to grasp the fact that Hoffman was deadly serious.

"We need to understand how they work if we're going to stand a chance," said Hoffman, his voice level. "Have you been studying them at all?"

The whetstone was moved aside as Sidney turned the sword over on her knee to attend to the other edge. Her gaze flickered up once more, and then dropped again as she slid the stone up the wicked blade with the gentlest of rasps.

"I understand 'em well enough," said Rick, sharply. "You either shoot 'em in the head or you run for your life. It's a simple enough choice."

There was a soft footstep, and Sidney glanced up as Mallick sat down beside her. She moved the point of the sword aside to allow him room, then continued in her work, although she had seen the expression on his face well enough and there was now the faintest of knots in her brow as her hand moved back and forth along the steel.

"Can I talk to you?" he asked, after a long period of silence during which he'd seemed to be waiting for her to speak up first. Sidney's stroke faltered fractionally, but she picked up her pace once more as if she'd never hesitated at all.

"You've never asked for my permission before," she said, smoothly, her lips curving slightly. "It must be serious."

He looked away for a second, watching Hoffman and Rick, trying to put his thoughts into order before he spoke. The two were now standing close to one another, and the Sheriff's shoulders were hunched. Hoffman, however, seemed to be glacially calm.

"What good d'you think you're gonna do, anyhow?" asked Rick, narrowing his eyes at the detective. "If you're talkin' about an autopsy, you're no more qualified than the rest of us."

"I've attended so many autopsies I've lost count," said Hoffman, curtly, "but that's not exactly what I had in mind. I'm just going to take it apart a piece at a time. There's got to be another way of killing them and it's worth finding out."

Mallick was not surprised at this. Horrified, to be sure, but not remotely surprised, considering everything he'd learned about Hoffman. This thought nudged him back to remembrance of why he'd sat down beside Sidney, and he turned back at last. When he did, he found that she'd set the claymore and whetstone aside and was looking at him with her hands clasped on her knees, suddenly all attention. It was almost unnerving, but he was resolved not to be deterred.

"Sidney," he said, soberly, "what are you doing?"

"What do you mean?" she asked, and her eyes radiated honest innocence, but he pushed a little harder.

"You're confusing the shit out of that poor kid, you know," he told her. "I'm trying my best here, but it's _you_ she wants. Her mother walked out on her, her father's dead and she needs someone she can rely on." He stopped, hanging his head sadly. "I thought I heard her crying last night but there was no point in asking."

He waited to see if she would react to this, and as he watched, he saw her expression shift, though the change was subtle.

"She _has _to be stronger than this," she said. "I may not always be around. Everything I'm doing is for the best, even if that's not clear right now."

Mallick returned his attention to the two police officers for a moment. They had lowered their voices a little now, but it was clear that this in no way reflected the ongoing tone of the discussion, and he saw Hoffman make a hand gesture that was mostly ambiguous but ever so slightly aggressive at the same time. He shivered, even though this had not been aimed at him.

"I'm not like Diana," he said, swinging his head back. "I trust you, and I always have. You haven't let us down yet. But" – just here he hesitated, and darted his eyes in Hoffman's direction – "I'm not sure I understand what you're thinking any more. Dr. Gordon stayed behind to make sure Hoffman didn't get away, and now all of a sudden you're best friends?"

Mallick regretted this acidic slight as soon as it had passed his lips; Sidney's eyes, which were normally under exquisite control and so placid as to be almost unfathomable, had _burned_ for a fraction of a second. He was about to shy away from this conflagration, but it was there and gone before he could coordinate his muscles, and then she was reaching out to take his arm, keeping him in his place. Her cool fingertips brushed his scar as she did so, and for a moment Mallick wondered whether this was merely incidental, or something altogether more communicative.

"For now, we need him alive," she said, firmly, squeezing his wrist to emphasise this. "I can't explain this to Diana and I don't intend to explain it to you. I'm only going to say that there are matters between myself and Detective Hoffman that remain unresolved, and until they are, I'm asking you to have a little faith." She sat back, releasing her firm grasp on his arm, her lips pressed together. "Now, if you'll excuse me..." she added, and, standing up, crossed the floor.

Hoffman had been about to speak up again when Sidney materialised at his elbow. For a moment he was genuinely nonplussed by her unexpected appearance, and his gaze flickered between her and Rick, who was also looking vaguely startled. Despite her proximity to the detective, however, she stepped forward and addressed Rick instead.

"Sheriff," she said, "if you'll forgive my intrusion, I'd like to say something."

"Of course," he said, nodding at her with good grace.

"The Detective Lieutenant may not be qualified to carry out an examination, but I _am_," she said. "I spent four years in med school."

Hoffman started; she saw him react out of the corner of his eye and now he was craning his neck at her, his eyes tainted with sudden incredulity. She favoured him with a slight turn of her head as he looked her up and down.

"Why didn't I know that?" he asked her.

"Why should you?" she retorted. "It was a long time ago, and I was forced to give up my career in any case. Regardless," she went on, turning back to the Sheriff as if Hoffman had just been switched off, "I'll be happy to assist in any way I can."

"Miss Harris," said Rick, wearily, rubbing his hand across his forehead, "that's fine, but it ain't my biggest problem with this plan. I have a big issue with bringing one in here at _all_, and I'm also concerned about how the other walkers are going to react." He looked hard at her. "We've seen no signs of pack instinct in these things so far, but what if we're wrong about that?"

Sidney angled her head at him.

"We seem to be surrounded," she said. "How can this plan make that situation any worse than it already is?" She cast her eyes at Hoffman for a split second, as if seeking his approval to continue on his behalf, but if this was given then it was in silence. "We took a risk at the precinct, and it paid off," she told Rick, earnestly. "It's time to take another."

Rick's gaze faltered; not by much, but enough to signal defeat. His hands remained by his sides, but they were now curling into themselves, almost involuntarily. He looked between Sidney and Hoffman for a moment in silence, and then sighed harshly.

"Okay," he said, severely. "But I'm going to tell you how this goes, Detective. First, I ain't gonna see you put any of my people at risk by goin' out there. Y'all want a walker, you catch it yourself, you got that?"

Hoffman nodded briefly. "No problem," he said.

"Second, you keep it contained," said Rick. "If it gets loose in here I'll kill _it_ first and _you_ second." He paused here, watching Hoffman's face for any sign of a reaction to this threat, but the detective was, all at once, a study in stone, so Rick continued. "Last of all," he said, "you do what you gotta and then you kill it as quick as you can. I don't care what they are _now_, they were human beings once, so show a little decency."

That seemed to be that. Rick, having expended a great deal of breath on haranguing Hoffman as hard as he could, wound down now and stepped back a pace to study him with care. He appeared to have expected more resistance from the detective, and it was as if the lack of this had thrown him. Hoffman's expression was perfectly still.

"Thanks," he said, simply. Rick returned this expression with a tiny, bitter smile.

"You may not want to thank me when all this is over," he said, to which Hoffman raised an eyebrow but said nothing in response, and eventually, Rick settled his shoulders a little and walked away. Hoffman watched him go, then turned his head to Sidney, who had not moved a single muscle.

"Why?" he asked.

It was only one syllable, but it contained a wealth of subtext, though this was a verbal feat at which Hoffman was particularly skilled. Sidney, however, looked mildly puzzled.

"You of all people are in no position to query my motives, Detective," she said, chiding him. "However, since you ask, they're perfectly honest. Your idea is sound and I'm willing to help you." She paused, and stared right at him now, her eyes piercing him. "You really do have a problem trusting people, don't you? My goodness."

She didn't wait for a response to what was, in any case, largely a rhetorical question, but merely offered him a microscopic smile before walking back to Mallick. He'd been listening to this exchange with his ongoing concerns quite intact, and, as she reached his side, he realised that he'd only added to their number.

"You're serious?" he said, quietly. "He's just fucking crazy, but you're _serious?_"

"Perfectly so," she told him, picking up the sword, examining the fresh gleam along both edges and, finally satisfied as to its sharpness, sheathing it once more. Mallick watched her hands, and then he watched her eyes, but struggled to find a trace of dissemblance anywhere about her person. Nevertheless, he tried.

"This is a trick, right?" he asked. "You've got something planned."

Sidney set the scabbard aside with a patient sigh, and turned to Mallick with her arms folded.

"I don't play tricks," she said, looking down at him with a barely perceptible twitch of her lip. "Now if that's all, I'd like you to and find Diana, please, and see if she's all right. Something tells me she won't tell the truth right now if I'm the one doing the asking."

Mallick had his reasons for doubting that he'd be any more successful in that regard, but there was now a very definite look in Sidney's eye that advised him against debating the point, so he simply nodded and headed off to locate Diana.

As soon as the door had swung to behind him, Sidney turned around to find Hoffman standing almost indecorously close to her. She did not seem perturbed by this in the slightest, however, and merely stared up at him in sudden, critical examination.

"So," she said, calmly, "how do you propose to go about this?"


	16. Chapter 16

Alone in the echoing quiet of the sluice room, Andrea ran a little hot water into the basin and warmed her hands in it for a few moments, then pulled them out and drew her wet palms down her face, sighing heavily.

Much as she wanted to, she couldn't put off looking any longer, and so she unbuttoned her shirt, pulling it open and studying herself in the cracked, speckled mirror on the wall. The creamy skin of her bare breast was discoloured with new-found red bruises, and she could clearly see the prints of Hoffman's fingers on either side of her soft pink nipple where he'd applied pressure to her trembling flesh.

The sight should have provoked horror in her, she realised, and in her old life it might well have done. Now, though, she ran her fingers over her aching breast, breathing heavily, and found that she was enjoying what she saw. It was, in a way, as if the detective had marked his property, and as that perverse thought crept, quite unbidden, into her mind, she shivered with disquieting desire.

"Show me," said Hoffman, softly. She wheeled around, instinctively pulling her shirt closed as she did so. He was secreted in a shadow that seemed to gather around his head and shoulders like a cloak, but she could see that his eyes were glittering oddly as he stared at her. There had been a harmonic of incontestable command in those words, however, and she relaxed her hands as he stepped out of the doorway and approached her.

He reached out and pulled back the edge of her shirt once more, examining the bruises he'd left, his head on one side. His hand moved now, becoming more meaningful, cupping her breast and rubbing his palm over her tender nipple in slow circles. Andrea stood in silence as his idle attentions continued, and when he finally looked back up at her, she gasped beneath her breath. His eyes were alight with arousal, but, at one and the same time, colder than ice.

"Are you sure this is what you want?" he asked, his voice like tearing silk. Though it sounded like a question, Andrea knew that she was being warned.

"I'm sure," she said, raising her hand to touch his face, but he reacted, wrapping his fingers around hers and holding them fast.

"Then say it," he said. "Ask me, and it's yours."

Andrea closed her eyes for a second, swallowing. She had the words in her head, had been turning them over in her mind for a long time now, and they were consuming her piece by piece, but she fought to find the courage to speak them aloud. She was aware that they would take her past the point of no return, and into a dark and potentially deadly place she wasn't sure she understood. She met that implacable gaze from beneath half-lowered lashes and gave voice to her thoughts.

"It's been so long since I've felt anythin'," she said, her tone surprising her with its strength. "Survival's not enough. I've wanted you since the first moment I saw you, and I know what I need." She hesitated for a deep breath, steeling herself. "I need you to fuck me, hurt me, do what you want and make me bleed if you have to. I just wanna feel something _real_."

There was a pause, enough for the space of a few heartbeats, and then Hoffman smiled his troubling half-smile before pushing her up against the cold wall hard enough to slam the breath from her lungs. She felt his hands close around her wrists, then he was raising her arms and pinning her to the tiles.

Andrea stared into his eyes, and at such close range it was no longer possible to deny the animal in them; she heard its chilling howl in his hot breath and saw it struggle for supremacy beneath his burning skin. Finally, she watched him lose the battle and surrender to the beast as it roared its triumphant hosannas.

"You're _mine_," he whispered at last, then lowered his head and bit at her neck, driving his teeth into her, snorting heavily against her flesh as he tasted blood. Andrea thrashed against him in the throes of this, but he responded by grinding his hips against her, and she panted with lust as she felt his iron-hard erection pressing into her thigh.

"I want that," she said, huskily. She was no longer in control of her mind, her body or her voice, but with this came a new strength, one born of sudden possession. She felt her own beast stir and raise its hackles, preparing to fight back, knowing very well it would only serve to spur him on, and she wrenched one wrist out of his grasp and sank her fingernails into the unprotected flesh of his neck.

Hoffman reared back, licking her blood from his lips, and he smirked as he twisted away from her clawing.

"Feisty. I like it," he observed, almost casually, but Andrea was not to be deterred. She freed her other hand and shoved him back a step, to his apparent surprise, then reached down and closed her fingers on his crotch, squeezing hard, rubbing the heel of her hand against his erection through his jeans. She was close enough to watch his pupils dilate as she did so, and then he grinned and clamped his hands on her shoulders, driving her to her knees in front of him.

"Take it," he growled, his breath coming in ragged gasps and his head rolling back on his shoulders.

Andrea's hands shook a little as she unbuckled his belt and unzipped his pants, closing her fingers around his cock and licking her lips before taking him into the heat of her mouth. Hoffman shuddered, groaning deep in his chest and twining one fist in her hair. She struggled against his brutal grasp, but he merely pulled on her hair, forcing himself even deeper and hitting the back of her throat so hard that she gagged.

"You wanted this," he snarled, thrusting into her mouth. "Don't fucking fight me, bitch..."

He held her still a little longer as his grip on her hair intensified until her scalp screamed, and Andrea felt her eyes water. Finally he yanked her head back savagely, withdrawing his slippery shaft from her throat, and as she gasped for air she looked up into his sombre gaze.

"Had enough?" he asked, gently.

"Hell, no," she retorted, and Hoffman dropped, bearing her to the floor with a twisted grin, sliding his knee between her thighs and looming over her. She returned his stare with defiance and reached up, ripping at his shirt, tearing off the buttons and exposing his chest. She raised her head and buried her face in his soft pelt of hair, nipping gently at the skin just above one nipple. When this failed to goad him she bit harder, but there was still no response, and she looked up again.

"I think you can do better than _that_," he purred, his eyes simmering.

She did so, snapping her head up once again and biting down as hard as she could, tearing at his skin and lapping at his blood until he shuddered against her. Still, he withstood this attack on his flesh in silence until, at last, he drew back out of her reach and turned his attention to the rest of her clothing, stripping her urgently and with an ease that bespoke long practise. When he was done, Andrea lay shivering on the freezing floor and was, suddenly, unable to move or speak as he pulled at his own clothes.

If anything still remained of Hoffman's humanity, it was no longer enough to restrain him. He took her and turned her over, entering her from behind without ceremony, driving into her so roughly that she closed her teeth on her tongue and tasted a fresh wellspring of blood. She felt his hands on her hips, fingers burrowing into her flesh, drawing her back to force every last inch of his cock into her; then he was clawing his way up her back and grabbing a handful of her hair, dragging her up. His chest was slick with sweat, which mingled with the smooth gloss on her own skin as he pulled her close against him.

Andrea's thighs were aching, and she arched her back, her head rolling to one side and sagging back onto his shoulder. Hoffman took advantage of this to invade her mouth and bite at her lower lip before he drew back a little, and then he was speaking softly to her.

"Do you want me to make you come?" he asked, before running the tip of his tongue across the back of her neck, raising a helpless quiver that thrummed and tightened every muscle in her body in turn and had her fingers and toes curling. Her mind was adrift on a sea of sensation that ranged from dull, sordid pain, through dizzy confusion, to the soaring heights of pleasure. She was conscious only of the animal heat of his naked flesh, pressed against her in countless ways, and of the low, delicious ache deep inside her as she sat impaled on his erection. In the midst of this tumult, she struggled to find her voice.

"Yes," she breathed, and then the air congealed in her lungs as Hoffman's hand slipped from her hair, moving around to close upon her throat instead. His fingers were soft and smooth, but she tensed as he tightened that grip a fraction.

"No," he hissed. "I want to hear you beg for it."

Hoffman underscored these words by gliding his free hand around Andrea's hip, tracing his touch lower, exploring the fine hair on her pubic mound and then sinking lower still, slipping into her moist cleft. One fingertip found her engorged clit and then he held quite still, waiting for her response, and she almost screamed in frustration.

"Come on, you beautiful slut," he breathed, squeezing her throat a little harder until her head spun and she felt the tiniest flicker of fear at the brute strength of that grip. "Just say it," he told her. "Say my name and tell me what you want."

"Mark..." she croaked, and swallowed heavily, feeling her throat surge against his encircling hand, "Please make me come. _Please_," she repeated, this last word emerging in a hoarse, low-pitched whine. Hoffman laughed softly into her hair and then nuzzled her neck tenderly.

"With pleasure," he said, and then all at once his fingers were moving, circling her clit and sinking into her abundant juices, applying pressure and picking up speed until she was shaking violently and her eyes rolled back in her head. All the while he was whispering soft obscenities into her ear, urging her on, and as he jerked his hips up against her she climaxed with a piercing cry, convulsing against him as if she were being electrocuted. Hoffman restrained her as her orgasm twisted and seared every nerve ending in her body, and she felt his muscles stiffen in sympathy with her own.

For long seconds the two of them remained locked together, and then he released his hold on Andrea's throat and allowed her to sag, sinking to the floor with his cock still buried inside her. She pressed her burning cheek to the icy surface, and, as he seized her hips and drove a vicious thrust into her, she clawed at the tiles so hard that she felt one of her fingernails break.

His movements were beyond brutal now, his fingers leaving red stripes in her pale flesh and his hips smacking loudly against her buttocks, punctuating each stroke with a guttural grunt and slamming into her with such unfettered savagery that she whimpered like an injured animal. He leaned in closer, breathing so harshly that she felt each exhalation wash over her back.

There was no more than a tiny spark of sanity left in Andrea's mind, and, as she was jolted to a second shuddering orgasm, it winked out entirely. Everything she'd asked for, she'd been given, and had relished it all with black joy. She could do no more than focus on her raw and skewered cunt as Hoffman fucked her with every ounce of strength he possessed, satisfying long denied and utterly untamed urges upon her.

His hand was in her hair again now, dragging her head back so hard that he almost snapped her neck, and then with one last bruising thrust and a harsh curse he was done, and she felt his cock throbbing as he spilled into her.

Silence descended, broken only as Hoffman released a shaking breath and then withdrew from her, slumping to the floor at her side, his chest heaving and face flushed. Andrea shivered as the chill caught at her once more and then turned, sinking to the tiles, aching here and stinging there, yet somehow satisfied with each and every one of these battle scars. For a while she was content to lie on her hip, feeling his semen trickling out of her and cooling on her thigh. She hesitated, however, before raising her gaze to Hoffman's, wholly unsure of what she would find there. Eventually, though, she summoned the necessary courage to lift her head.

He looked human again. Exhausted and drained, but human, and, as much as she'd taken pleasure in the beast's assault, she was glad that the storm clouds were clearing from his eyes. She reached out a tentative hand, and this time he didn't move to stop her as she brushed a strand of damp hair off his forehead then briefly traced the crooked path of his scar; after a moment, though, he took her hand, drew it to his mouth and licked the sweat from her palm. It was, in a strange way, a much more intimate gesture than anything that had preceded it.

"How do you feel?" he asked her, quietly, as his eyes searched her face.

"Alive," she said, smiling softly.


	17. Chapter 17

Andrea wrung her wet hair between her hands and shook it out, combing it as best she could with her fingers.

She'd taken meticulous care in cleaning herself up. In some ways it had felt like a loss; she hated to wash Hoffman's scent from her skin, feeling as if she were erasing much needed reminders of the primitive way he'd taken her. She was profoundly sore both inside and out, though, and the cold water had helped to assuage that discomfort. When she'd pressed the cloth to her shoulder it had come away pink with her blood, which had come as no great surprise, but the sight had still sent a dark, pleasurable trickle down her spine.

She was sitting on her bedroll and sorting through her pack, unsure what she was looking for – if anything at all – but she was trying to occupy her hands to keep them from wandering to her neck. She'd seen Hoffman engaged in a quiet dialogue with Sidney, presumably over the matter of capturing a walker, and she'd made to approach them, wanting to assist. Hoffman, however, had seemed to read Andrea's intention accurately enough, and merely shook his head at her before following Sidney out of the door. It could have felt like a dismissal, but it hadn't, and she'd accepted it easily enough and watched the pair walk away.

"Hell," she said to herself, realising that she had finally lost all power of concentration. In the wake of this, her hand strayed once more to the red mark on her neck.

"Boo," said Lori, quietly, right behind her. It had obviously been meant as a gentle tease, but in her current state of distraction, Andrea almost leapt into the air, and Lori took a step back in apology.

"Damn, I'm sorry," she said, sitting down at Andrea's side and wrapping her arms around her knees, adopting a mildly curious look spiced with something else that Andrea couldn't immediately identify, but which, as it grew in strength, she realised was coquettish confederacy. Lori was fairly bursting with something unsaid.

"What's up, girl?" Andrea asked, in the face of a sudden suspicion. Lori's eyes twinkled for a moment longer, and then she leaned in to whisper in Andrea's ear.

"So," she said, "how was it?"

"_Lori!_" said Andrea, shocked, but laughing along with it. It seemed that the other woman was not to be deterred, though.

"Come on," she said. "I've been stood over there for five minutes watchin' the silly grin on your face, and I know a hickey when I see one. You may as well have had 'well-laid woman' tattooed on your ass!"

All at once, Andrea was no longer quite so amused, and the smile leaked from her face at once; the passing reference to the bite mark on her neck had shifted her thoughts onto a different track entirely. She did not want to go into detail even if Lori were inclined to ask, and she certainly did not want her passing closer inspection of the wound she'd sustained. It wasn't so much that it was a source of shame, except to several small and unwelcome parts of her mind, but she knew that Lori would be bound to misinterpret things. Andrea reached up and readjusted the neckline of her shirt in what she hoped was a casual fashion, covering the bite.

A little too late, it seemed. Lori's brows had dropped, and she reached out and took Andrea by the shoulder, her eyes wide.

"Jesus," she said, softly. "What in hell did he _do _to you?"

Andrea turned, removing Lori's hand from her shoulder and squeezing it fondly for a second between her own.

"Listen, everything's all right," she said earnestly, smiling. "I..." she paused, trying to assemble her thoughts. "I know it looks bad, but I'm fine. I'm more'n fine," she went on, "matter of fact I feel better than I have in a long time now. You can see that, you said so yourself."

Lori looked just as doubtful, but remained silent, her eyes tracking across Andrea's face and occasionally flitting down to the bite on her neck, as if she wished to be left in no doubt as to what she'd seen.

"Lori," said Andrea, still holding her hand tightly, "It really wasn't like you're thinkin'. Please believe me." This was followed by one final, thoughtful pause, and then Lori ceded her grievous concern, at least for the moment, and put it away, offering Andrea a gentle expression in its stead.

"I do believe you," she said, "and you're right, whatever happened, you're almost _glowin'_ with it. I won't pry as long as you're happy," she added, patting Andrea's arm affectionately, and then got to her feet. "Now, I'd better go find my menfolk. Heaven knows what they're up to without me to keep an eye on 'em..."

As Lori left the workshop, Andrea looked around as she heard light, hurried footsteps from the other side of the room. The door to the stairs was ajar, and as she watched, she saw Diana slip through, her axe gripped in one white-knuckled fist and her face set. Before Andrea could react, however, the girl had crossed the room and disappeared once more, heading for the front door of the plant.

Something about her manner set off a tiny charge of fear in Andrea's gut.

* * *

Sidney stood back and propped her shoulders against the wall of the corridor, her hand on the hilt of the claymore and her gaze steady.

"Doesn't this scare you?" she asked, after a while.

Hoffman could not have failed to hear her, but he kept his head down and continued to check the Browning, making sure that it was fully functional; it was clearly displacement activity, though, and after a few seconds he holstered it once more with a soft, short-tempered grunt and looked up at her.

"_You_ scare me," he said.

Sidney laughed at this. "You flatter me," she said, her eyes radiating amusement, "but too much by half. If I scared you, you would have killed me by now, because that's the only response you know."

"What the fuck do think you know about me?" he retorted.

"More than I care to, Detective," she said, ignoring his petulance, "but I don't hear you denying it."

The radio crackled in Hoffman's hand, saving him the trouble of composing a reply, and he lifted it to his ear. He didn't take his eyes from Sidney's face as he listened, however.

"_Looks like it's as good as it's gonna get_," said Mallick, from his position on the roof. "_There's ten of them out the front. You'll probably want to go for the female in the pink, that's the smallest one_. _Over._"

"Ten?" said Hoffman, startled, looking worried for a moment, until he realised that Sidney was still watching him closely, and he hardened his features once more. "Okay, whatever," he went on, with a rough sigh, "we'll manage. Where's the target? Over."

"_Not that close right now_," said Mallick, sounding hoarse with strain even over the airwaves. "_It's by the gate. Over_."

"Shit," said Hoffman, distantly, and then refocused himself. "Well, we'll do what we can. Get back down here, we'll need you to lock the door behind us. Over and out."

He released the switch and dropped the radio into his inside pocket, fishing around for a second to retrieve the ice pick instead. The weapon had not been cleaned since its last call of duty, and the blade was still dull with dried blood. He held it up to his eye for a second, turning it, and then lowered his hand once more.

"Okay," he said, settling his shoulders. "I'm going to try to avoid shooting any of them, but it may come to that, so keep your eyes and ears open. I don't care what happens to the rest, but I need the target intact. If we can disable it without cutting it up too badly, it'll be good. Broken bones aren't too much of a problem, but try to avoid the internal organs, and whatever you do, I want the brains left untouched."

He stopped speaking, not because there was no more to say but more because Sidney was now looking at him with an uncomfortable degree of analysis, her eyes shining.

"You're enjoying this, aren't you?" she asked.

"No more than you," he said.

"I'm sorry you think that way," Sidney told him, drawing her sword as she spoke. She had the satisfaction of seeing Hoffman tense a little as she did so, but she merely smiled at his reaction, and then placed the point of the blade on the floor with a soft _clink_ and rested her hand on the pommel. "You changed me, it's true, but not _that_ much. I'm not you, and you should be thankful for that."

"Yeah, why's that?" he asked, sourly.

"Because if I _were_," she replied, "I would have already cut you in half."

Any further comment on Hoffman's part was interrupted by the sound of the door to the workshop. He turned, expecting Mallick, but his eyes narrowed a fraction as Diana stepped out of the shadows and gave him a brief, contemptuous glance before turning her attention to Sidney and tightening her grasp on the haft of the axe.

"No," said Sidney, in response to everything she saw in the girl's eyes.

Diana returned that forbidding look with one of her own. She knew that she was no match for Sidney in that respect, but she'd be damned if she wasn't going to fight her corner for once, particularly in front of Hoffman. She could feel him looking at her, his stare falling on the side of her face so hard that she almost felt it as a physical presence against her cheek, and she raised her chin.

"I'm coming with you," she said, vehemently, though she heard the softest of quivers in her voice as she spoke, and hated it. "Two against ten? You need me."

"I said _no_," Sidney repeated, her tone just as gentle as it had been before. If this was intended to subdue Diana, it failed, and instead achieved the opposite effect. She felt her brow tighten and her lip curl, and was just about to take a challenging step forward when she heard the smallest of sounds behind her as Hoffman adjusted his position.

"She can come," he said, and she turned on the spot, but he wasn't looking at her any more. Diana cocked her head this way and that for a second, scrutinising him, waiting for any signs of cruel humour, certain as she was that this had to be a joke at her expense.

"Detective, I don't appreciate –" Sidney began, but Hoffman jerked his head up and sliced across her words with the sharpest of stares.

"We need all the help we can get," he said, bluntly. "I don't think anyone else is gonna volunteer, do you?"

Diana bridled, feeling as if this were the most backhanded of compliments, but some extra sense held her tongue and told her that this was not the moment to reject confirmation, no matter how unlikely the source. She could not, however, bring herself to acknowledge the detective's part in the debate, and contented herself with turning back to Sidney with an expectant look plastered across her face. Sidney's lips parted for a moment, and Diana sensed that there was a final scrap of resistance behind that small movement, but then she relented in silence and averted her eyes for a second. When they returned to Diana's face, though, they were graver still.

The moment was broken by Mallick's arrival. He stopped short as he walked through the door, seeming to sense the heightened atmosphere between the three of them, and his lips worked silently for a second.

"Er..." he said, and then shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other. "Are you good to go?"

Sidney tore her gaze away from Diana long enough to nod at him and then fix him with the most serious of stares.

"Remember," she said, "don't unlock this door again until you hear the knock. No matter what you hear, you got that? No matter _what_. Okay," she went on, turning away from him after one last, pointed look and addressing the others, "I'm going out in front, and no arguments. Diana, you stay behind me and watch my back. Detective Hoffman will go for our target, but if the way's not clear we'll have to do it for him." She paused now, and took Diana's chin in her hand, fingers pressing ever so slightly into her pale skin. "Do you understand me?"

Diana withstood that insistent grip for a few seconds before reaching up and gently prying it loose.

"I understand," she said, "but if I'm watching your back, try to watch mine too, okay?"

She didn't turn around. She didn't so much as glance at Hoffman as she spoke. Nevertheless, she saw from the tiniest of flickers in Sidney's gaze that her insinuation had been received and understood, if not condoned. Eventually, Sidney stepped back, lifting the claymore in the narrow space afforded by the corridor. She shot Hoffman a look, and he curled one hand around the door handle.

"Ready?" he asked.

Sidney exhaled smoothly. Diana reached out without looking and touched her wrist for a moment.

"Ready."


	18. Chapter 18

There was a walker on the steps.

It turned as the door swung open, but not quickly enough to react to what confronted it. Sidney had moved out into the sunlight in a low and steady stance, but now she rose in front of it with the sword already whistling through the air, slashing its neck as neatly as a scalpel. Blood flew, trailing behind the point of the blade in a fine strand and pouring from the walker's throat. Despite what would have been, to a human, a mortal wound, the creature opened its mouth and spat yet more sticky blood at Sidney. She growled very briefly in return, switched her grip on the claymore and drove it forward, ramming the sword into its mouth and up through its palate, which offered surprisingly little resistance.

Diana had been fully intent on obeying Sidney's instructions, but out of the corner of her eye, she saw a second walker struggling up onto the dock. As Sidney planted her foot in the creature's stomach in order to pull the sword from its head, kicking it down the steps as soon as she'd retrieved her weapon, Diana moved aside and brought the axe down at an angle, sinking it into the thing's head and knocking it sideways with the force of the impact. It slumped at once, brains bursting through the hole in its skull, and tumbled off the dock.

Hoffman ducked out of the door behind them and dodged past Sidney, stepping over the corpse on the steps and moving out into the yard with the ice pick held low at his side. There were still eight more walkers up and about, and Diana watched with a nauseating mixture of trepidation and satisfaction as one closed in on him. It was a male; a _big_ male, she noted, bigger even than the detective. Though Hoffman was only half turned away, Diana could still not make out his expression, but his body language suggested that he was far from fearful and possibly not even unduly worried by the creature's approach or by the others moving in fast behind it.

Sidney was also paying attention, and she had just started down the steps after the detective when her eyes flickered, seeing that he'd switched the ice pick to his other hand and drawn his pistol instead.

"_Not yet!_" she called to him, her voice piercing and fluttering on the edge of alarm, and then turned back for one second, jerking her head at Diana.

Hoffman obeyed without looking back, holstering the gun and driving the ice pick up and forward, still gripped in his left hand. This seemed to have affected his aim, however, as the fine blade missed the walker's eye socket and powered through its cheek instead. Such was the force of the blow that it shattered its teeth, ruined its tongue and emerged on the other side of its face in a short spurt of black fluid. The walker issued a thick, wet choking sound and snapped its head to the side, and Hoffman took advantage of this to drag the weapon free, switch hands once more and strike again, this time on target, sinking the point into its eye.

Though this was evidently a death blow in itself, Diana was now close enough to see something like vicious pleasure flit across the detective's face as he wrenched the handle of the ice pick to one side, ripping the point through the creature's brain, before finally withdrawing it.

She and Sidney had reached the detective and now took up station on either side of him as the remaining walkers advanced. They seemed to be spreading out. Though the formation was both loose and ragged, lacking any immediately obvious cohesion, it was disturbing enough that Diana risked a quick glance at Sidney, trying to gauge her reaction.

Diana caught a brief flash of pink at the rear of the pack, and tried to focus on it, but her survival instincts had the bulk of attention concentrated on those walkers nearest her. She backed away a couple of steps and turned a little now, trying to keep her sights set on what was starting to look very much like an eerie flanking manoeuvre.

"We don't have time for this," said Hoffman, savagely, and pulled out the Browning, raising it in both hands and firing at the nearest of the creatures. Diana turned back just as the hollow point round slammed into its face, and at such close range, its head simply exploded, showering the rest of the walkers with a fine mist of blood and gritty fragments of pulverised skull. The corpse dropped back, scattering the others a little, and Hoffman picked off two more as they milled in momentary confusion, shooting one in the temple and the other in the throat.

He left Sidney's furious look in his wake and tackled another bare handed, seizing its head in one hand and ramming the ice pick into the flesh just below its ear until it was buried to the hilt. The creature jerked, stiffening as the blade sliced into its brain stem, and dropped as Hoffman dragged the blade out and shoved the corpse back. As it fell, he refocused, catching sight of his target at last and moving to intercept it.

Behind him, Sidney and Diana had found themselves with one more walker apiece, and now stood back to back as the creatures closed in, moving sidelong in frightening silence. Diana was drawing almost all of her strength from Sidney's presence, and even with this, she experienced a momentary urge to turn and run. The thing in front of her was a young male in good condition, apparently uninjured, and had the circumstances been different he might have been attractive. However, she was looking into the walker's clouded, empty eyes, and collected herself enough to take a swipe at it.

She missed, and not by a little either. To her horror, the creature sidestepped the blow. Not gracefully, to be sure, but Diana was not used to encountering fight and hadn't anticipated anything of the kind, and before she could process this development and recover her balance it had caught hold of her and dragged her into its arms.

Diana didn't drop the axe; her reflexes were too sharply honed for that, and if anything, her grip tightened on the handle. She was now far too close to deploy it, however, and as she felt the walker's fingernails sinking into her soft throat, she struck out with her one free hand. That steel grasp only tightened further still, as if her resistance to its assault had not had the slightest impact on its hunger, and in spite of the white light now crowding out her vision, Diana could see the creature leaning in to bite at her.

A soft sound behind her prompted one remaining reflex, and she closed her eyes and twisted her face away as hard as she could. There was a hiss, followed by the flat smack of impact, and then she felt cool, slimy blood pouring over her arms and speckling her cheek. The walker's hand relaxed, slipping from her throat, and she staggered back, drawing in a deep, whining breath. There was one last dull thud, and she opened her eyes again to see the thing's headless body crumpling to the ground before her.

Sidney seized her shoulder and turned her around, running her eyes over the girl's face and throat, examining her for bites or scratches. Diana stood beneath this scrutiny as she felt a rivulet of blood making its way down her cheek, and as it settled on the point of her chin, preparing to fall, she wiped it away with the cuff of her sweatshirt and turned to look for the detective.

Hoffman had, meanwhile, reached the target. The creature was both short and slight, wearing a stained pink house dress. It had not seemed overly inclined to join in the hunt, and was stumbling along by the fence near the gate, head down, its movements mindless and random even for a walker. He watched it for a second, in case it turned on him, and then whistled softly at it to attract its attention.

It turned at last, and snarled vaguely as it focused its wandering eyes upon him. Hoffman, who had been on the verge of taking hold of it, stepped back in sudden, uneasy hesitation as he saw that it was just a small girl, no more than eight years old. With white-blonde hair and pale green eyes, she must once have been a beautiful child, but it was evident that the creature she'd become had been badly assaulted by the other walkers both before and after death. There was a large hole chewed in its cheek, and he could see more bites ripped along one frail white arm, driven bone deep in places.

The walker approached Hoffman, head held at a predatory angle, still broadcasting a low, murmuring growl from its narrow chest. He took a second faltering step back, but otherwise it was as if the sight of the child had him hypnotised. It was closer now, lips peeled back in a wet, gleaming grimace, and he watched as it raised one small hand, reaching up with silent cupidity.

There was a quiet footstep, and then Diana stepped into the very edge of his vision and took a double handed swing at the walker's head. The handle of the axe connected smartly with the base of its neck, and it folded up with a high pitched gasp, dropping into an untidy heap.

"Wake the fuck up," she snapped, moving in front of him now, her eyes blazing. He raised his gaze from the small form at his feet, and as he did so, his eyes flared perilously and he dropped his hand with whiplash speed, drawing his gun and raising it until it was aimed at her forehead.

Diana's heart stopped; she felt it shudder in her chest before it seized up entirely, and she almost choked on the terror that was swelling in her throat. She wanted to look Hoffman in the eye, but her gaze was drawn, inexorably, to the muzzle of the Browning, no more than a few inches from her face.

"Get down," he said, softly.

She did so, dropping into a crouch as he fired, sure that she felt the faintest backwash as the bullet passed over her head. She lost her balance on the way down, falling to her knees, turning awkwardly, watching as the walker behind her toppled backward. Hoffman's bullet had caught it in the mouth, almost blowing its head in half, and it went down in a vivid splash of blood and brain tissue.

Diana moved on instinct, but this was not enough to coordinate her. She scrambled away from this sight and found herself sprawled alongside the young walker, which was already regaining its senses with a small, snorting breath. She struggled up, watched as its chest surged, and then reacted as a coil of rope landed in the gravel in front of her bloodstained hands.

"Tie it up," said Hoffman, gruffly.

* * *

The door slammed back, and Andrea turned on the spot as the others filed through into the workshop, and as they did so her unease gradually segued into outright horror.

First came Mallick, and she saw that he was almost white with shock but for the dull grey circles beneath his eyes. He glanced up as he passed Andrea, but just as quickly hung his head once more. Even so, it had been long enough for her to see that his gaze was polluted with fear. Sidney was close behind him, her lips clamped together so hard that they had paled significantly and everything about her bearing indicating barely repressed anger. She still held the claymore in one tense fist, and with each step she took, a thin trickle of blood ran from the point of the blade and spattered onto the floor in complex curlicues.

Diana was next, and Andrea's eyes widened as she saw that the girl looked as if she'd been hosed down with blood. Her soft hair was matted and stained a deep reddish brown on one side, her face streaked with gore, and the front of her sweatshirt was gluey with drying ichor, against which she was occasionally scrubbing her palms in an absent-minded way.

Finally, to the accompaniment of a litany of high pitched hisses and squeals, Hoffman entered the workshop, and Andrea raised a hand to her mouth as her stomach twisted with fright.

He had his arms wrapped around a walker, and even though his captive could not have weighed more than fifty pounds and was also bound hand and foot, he was fighting to restrain it as if he were wrestling a wild animal. It tossed its head back, trying to turn, attempting to bite him, but he moved one hand to its throat and pinned it against his chest as firmly as he could.

There was a clamour of voices behind her as her companions filed into the workshop, alerted by the walker's shrill cries. Rick and Shane were in the lead, and Shane had drawn his side-arm out of pure reflex and was aiming it ahead of him, his hand shaking slightly. Andrea half turned and saw, to her dismay, that the children were also witness. Carol reacted at once, pulling Sophia into her arms and pressing the child's face into her side to shield her from the sight that confronted them both. Carl, though, resisted his mother's similar attempt, and was gazing at the detective with round, solemn eyes.

Rick bared his teeth and stepped forward. "Get it outta here," he hissed. "Right _now_."

Hoffman nodded, struggled mightily for a second as the walker made another furious attempt at wriggling out of his arms, and then dragged it away, heading for the cellars.

Andrea finally recovered a fraction of her senses as the creature's thin shrieks died away, removed her hand from her mouth and sagged a little, her head swimming. When she looked back up she decided that she was going to confront Hoffman and be damned with the consequences, but as she started away she felt a hand close around her elbow, and turned into Sidney's dark gaze.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," said Sidney, keeping her voice low to hide her commentary from the others. Once again, Andrea was struck by the unnerving sensation of having her innermost thoughts laid bare before this woman – but then again, she mused, perhaps there was no need for mind reading this time. Her reaction must have been sketched out on her face for anyone to see. Nevertheless, she pulled herself free and moved closer, lowering her own voice as well.

"You can't let him do this," she said, pleading. "That's just a little girl, for God's sake."

"It's not up to me any more," said Sidney, and she did not look unsympathetic. Andrea hesitated now, looking more closely at Sidney's expression, which seemed to her to be calculated to convey something of crucial importance. "What the hell _is_ he, Sidney?" she whispered.

Without warning, and without either one of them breaking their deadlocked gaze, Andrea found that Sidney had placed warm palms on either side of her face. When she'd done so, she leaned in a fraction closer and, this time, spoke so quietly that her words were little more than a disturbance in the air.

"He's the only chance we have," she said.


	19. Chapter 19

The water in the basin was a deep, sombre crimson, and as Diana hung her head, she studied her reflection in it as calmly as she could manage.

Only once she'd washed the drying blood from her face did she realise just how drawn she looked beneath it. The mirror had been cruelly exacting in this regard, which was why she was no longer looking at it. Her skin, though unmarked, was as white as cream in which her eyes, being both dark and slightly bloodshot, provided the only hint of colour. She blinked once, slowly, and then reached up to undo her sticky, tangled braids. When she was done, she pulled at the chain and watched the filthy water spiral away down the drain, then twisted the faucet, running the water until it was icy cold.

Cold enough to hurt, in fact, but she lowered her head and ran her hair under the freezing torrent, rinsing the blood from it, ignoring the pain in her scalp as she did so.

It was not enough, in any case, to stop the thought that was looping through her mind. Hoffman had saved her life. Though he had frightened her senseless in the process, she had no realistic way of denying that, had it not been for his intervention, she would have been easy prey. It had to be a game of some sort, she decided, her mouth twisting fiercely. The detective had never displayed the slightest inclination to save anyone's skin except his own.

_Son of a bitch is still playing everyone_, she thought, viciously, reaching up to shut off the faucet and wringing the last of the clotted blood from her hair. She pulled back, wiping the water from her eyes, and saw that she was no longer alone.

"You look just like your father," said Sidney, softly, leaning her head against the door frame for a second as she spoke. Even half hidden as she was in the gloom of the hallway, Diana saw that Sidney was suddenly tired. No, she corrected herself, looking again. Not tired – utterly exhausted, which was a matter for concern, considering how much more she might be hiding.

"What do you mean?" asked Diana, playing for time. She knew that the answer could not be the obvious one; she'd always been told she was the image of her mother.

"That look in your eye," said Sidney, emerging from the shadows at last. She'd retrieved her cane, and it tapped across the tiles as she approached, but despite the apparent strength of her gait it was evident that this time she was relying upon it for some assistance. "You're more like him than you realise, honey," she said, as she moved. "I can see it as plain as day. I wish you'd believe me."

"Do you regret what you did?" asked Diana, and, since she meant no slight by the question, she tried to keep her voice as soft as possible.

She saw at once that it had not been enough. Sidney stopped her inexorable advance and simply stood in the middle of the floor, her head to one side.

"It wasn't my decision, you know that," she said, eventually, her gaze analytical. "Was I going to deny your father's last request when I'd never refused him anything before?"

"I couldn't have done it," said Diana, and now her voice had shrunk even further.

"He knew that," Sidney told her, tenderly, "which is why he didn't ask it of you. Don't mistake that for a weakness, Diana," she continued. "I loved your father enough to kill him, and you loved him enough to want to hold on a little longer. Those are just different kinds of strength."

Sidney gripped the cane a little tighter and crossed the last of the floor now, moving to stand at her side. Together they looked into the mirror, and somehow, Diana found that it was a little easier to bear the weight of that smooth stare via the clouded glass.

"If there's something on your mind, honey," said Sidney, eventually, "I'd rather hear it even if you believe it'll hurt me. Better that than to hold it in, where it's hurting _you_."

Diana smiled, a shade bitterly in spite of herself. To which of the thousands of painful little twists in her heart should she give first voice? Weren't they simply components of a greater whole in any case? Most importantly, she wondered, had she hesitated just a little too long in answering? She glanced down once more at the cane – her father's cane – and decided.

"Sidney," she asked, at last, looking away for a second to gather her courage, "are you keeping something from me?"

"Since you wouldn't have asked unless you already suspected it," replied Sidney, thoughtfully, "that doesn't really qualify as a question at all, now does it?"

Diana snorted, suddenly angry.

"Oh _please_," she snapped. "Will you just drop the Yoda bullshit and stop dodging?"

She had expected Sidney to be hurt or shocked, perhaps to take a step back, and had prepared a secondary defence against this, and it was thus something of a stalling experience to see that none of these were the case. In fact, she could discern no reaction whatsoever until Sidney finally broke into a broad grin, the expression appearing out of nowhere and setting a new and unfamiliar spark in her eyes. This shift was so sudden and unexpected that Diana took a step back herself.

"That's more like it," said Sidney, with honest pleasure. "A little spirit, at last. Do you know how to channel it, though?" she asked.

"I know _where_ to channel it," said Diana, dropping to a throaty growl in her vehemence.

"Do you really, though?"

(_go with my blessing_)

"Yes!"

(_what does it matter who watches_)

"I offered you the opportunity to kill Detective Hoffman once before, and you ran away," said Sidney, looking Diana up and down for a moment. "I'm surprised you'd forgotten."

_She's pushing you_, Diana told herself, _but in which direction?_

_...this one_.

She set her jaw and turned away, walking out of the door with her head up, hands loose and her gaze fixed ahead of her. She expected Sidney to follow her, but her pride refused to allow her the slightest leave to to turn around.

Had she done so, however, she would have caught the smallest of movements as Andrea drew further back into the shadows behind the door, her eyes round with apprehension and her fingers clamped to her cheek.

* * *

Hoffman had chained the walker down on one of the tables in the boiler room, which had been no easy task with only one pair of hands. It had continued to thrash like an eel on a hotplate, clawing at him and trying to sit up, and in the end he'd wrapped a length of chain around its neck and pulled as hard as he could, then restrained its limbs one by one.

Slightly out of breath now, he stood back and studied it impassively as he pulled on a pair of latex gloves with a quiet snap. Whether from his efforts at subduing it or some dim, eventual realisation of its own predicament, it had ceased struggling now, and it turned its head to the side, watching him intently as a thin streamer of saliva ran from the corner of its mouth and pooled on the cold steel. It had also fallen silent, or at least as silent as it could, though the room was still enough that he could hear its thin breath rasping through its throat and rattling a little in its chest.

"Shall we?" said Sidney, from the doorway. Hoffman looked up to see her straightening her back with a thinly veiled expenditure of effort, setting the cane aside with a precise movement before closing the heavy steel door and approaching the table. The creature reacted to her, turning in her direction and lifting its head as far as it could within the restraint of the chain, upon which it stopped with a hoarse gurgle and sank back again. Sidney looked down at it, her gaze a blend of so many small, subtle elements that it was rendered quite indecipherable a a result.

Finally, she broke her examination with a quiet sigh and moved around to where Hoffman stood, extracting a switchblade from her pocket and releasing the blade, the _click_ this produced sounding all the louder for the silence and causing the detective to twitch in response; the movement was barely there, but Sidney caught it nonetheless, and her brow lifted a little in response. She turned it around and held it out to him.

"I don't have a scalpel," she said, by way of explanation, "but this should be sharp enough."

"What?" asked Hoffman, sounding puzzled rather than angry. "I thought _you_ were –"

"When I said I'd assist, that's exactly what I meant," she told him, patiently, and then took his unresisting hand, placing the handle of the knife in his palm. "If it's cowardice that's getting in your way, Detective, I advise you to get the better of it. There's no room for that, not here."

"_Cowardice?_" he repeated, his eyes suddenly twin mirrors of malice. "That's pretty fucking funny coming from someone who punched me in the back of the head."

"Oh..." said Sidney, slowly and thoughtfully, understanding dawning across her features. "I see. You're not that quick a learner, are you, especially when it comes to the consequences of pursuing a grudge. Just how many lessons do you need?"

"As many as you've got," said Hoffman, his tone soft yet still threatening. He watched Sidney offer him a small, angelic smile.

"Then take your best shot," she said, with a shrug.

Instinct had gripped his muscles before the cold gleam in Sidney's eyes could caution him against it, and he was driving her back against the wall, one hand clamped on her neck and the other bringing the edge of the switchblade up beneath her chin. In his fury he hadn't heard the smooth hiss as she reached for her hip, and the facts of the matter only penetrated his consciousness once the sword had completed its short swing, at which point he stopped breathing, and his eyes glazed slightly.

"There's more than one kind of coward," Sidney was saying, her voice sounding as if coming from a great distance. "I'm curious – which are you?" She illustrated her point by twitching her wrist a shade higher, and Hoffman, in response, raised himself onto his toes with a tiny gasp. "You need to _focus_, Detective," she went on, calmly, "so I suggest you start by focusing on this: you've five seconds to remove your hands before you find out just how fast I can turn a rooster into a hen."

Hoffman drew his hands away from her throat, slowly and carefully, and finally exhaled painfully as she lowered the sword and allowed him to retreat without further incident. She looked at him cautiously, waiting until he'd dropped his hand, the knife held low at his side once more.

"You wouldn't have done it," he said, but there was far less than absolute conviction there.

"Would I not?" she asked him, curiously, tilting her head at him. "Then I wonder what it was that put that fear in your eyes?"

She sheathed the sword, rolled up her sleeves and turned aside for a second, fetching a pair of gloves for herself and pulling them on. Hoffman waited, simmering in silence, as she tended to them, smoothing out every last wrinkle in the rubber and flexing her fingers to settle them on her hands. Only when everything seemed to her satisfaction did she return her attention to the detective.

"Make no mistake about this," she told him. "If you pass this test, it _won't _be by your usual methods. Now," she said, switching gears before he had a chance to react and returning to the table, her gaze sober, verging on sorrowful, as she looked down at the small form, "we have work to do."


	20. Chapter 20

Andrea stopped halfway down the corridor and leaned against the cold, clammy wall, trying to process what she'd heard.

Her head was spinning. Had she remained unaware of the animal within Hoffman, she would have found no hesitation in reaching a conclusion. As it was, her feet had carried her along the passage and this far before her certainty deserted her in one jarring second, leaving her stranded and a little dizzy. She turned, resting her forehead against the cool brickwork, trying to think.

In many ways, nothing she'd overheard had come as a complete surprise. She was already aware that Diana was harbouring a vicious yet so far inexplicable grudge against Hoffman, and that Sidney was determined to dissuade the girl from this. She was also conscious that nothing she'd been told by any of the new arrivals had been the truth, including the detective, yet at one and the same time, she couldn't put her finger on anything she would have confidently labelled an outright lie; to her, it felt more like a stream of half truths, vague truths and carefully phrased non-answers.

No: the only thing that had really disturbed her was the mention of Diana's father, who was, it appeared, the same man Sidney had loved and then beheaded. There was something scratching frantically at the back of Andrea's mind like a trapped mouse, some small but vital connection itching to be made, but she couldn't locate it in time and it eventually fell into silence.

_What are you going to say?_

Andrea jerked her head back with a short hiss of indrawn breath and pushed herself away from the wall with her palms, turning around and heading for the workshop.

_Who are you going to tell?_

She meant to find Rick, but when she located him, he was deep in urgent, whispered conversation with his wife. Without intending to eavesdrop, she nevertheless overheard a few words and phrases as she approached the pair, yet she didn't stop moving until she caught the sound of her own name from Lori's lips. As if this had been some kind of magic charm, Lori finally looked around Rick's shoulder and saw Andrea, and shut her mouth at once.

"Uh," said Andrea, entirely unsure of herself, "Rick, I gotta talk to you."

He turned to her, and she saw at once that his eyes were tainted with pain and exhaustion. There was room for a mote of compassion in there, however, and she seized upon this.

"I know what this is about," he told her, sadly, and with a brief glance back at Lori, "but I'm standin' by my decision. You think it was easy for me?"

"That's not –" Andrea said, meaning to voice her newborn fears, but somehow, the impetus had been lost. She was also slightly bewildered by the mention of her name and puzzled as to the context in which it might have been raised; Lori's eyes were still watchful.

"If it makes you feel any better," Rick told her, "I wouldn't have consented to this if it hadn't been for Miss Harris. She knows what she's doin', which is more'n we do, and I hope you know I'd never have agreed to Detective Hoffman's version of the plan. I'm sorry it came to this and believe me, I wish I could make up for it," he finished, sighing, "but I can't."

"Well, I _can_," said Andrea, and it was a few seconds before she realised that the words had come from her; they seemed to have bypassed all conscious choice and travelled straight from her gut to her lips. "I'm going to put a stop to this," she said.

"Andrea, wait..." said Rick, but she was already walking away, her back straight and her hands clenched to stop them from trembling.

* * *

The walker seemed to have stopped breathing altogether; the only sign that it was still alive was an infrequent slow, sticky blink.

It continued to watch Hoffman as he sliced through the ragged fabric of its dress, baring its thin chest. Its ribs stood out so prominently that they seemed to cast shadows on the white flesh beneath, and the skin was marked with yet more bruises and bites. As if responding to the exposure of its wounds, the walker inhaled harshly, causing its ribcage to shiver momentarily.

"Why the hell are they attacking each other?" he muttered, probing each injury in turn with his fingertips before glancing up at Sidney across the creature's body. She shifted uneasily, although it was unclear whether this was from the sight of the marks or due to the detective's suddenly very intense gaze.

"Hard to say," she said, at last, breaking eye contact and looking down, taking one of the walker's bony wrists in her hand and searching for a pulse. "They may be doing it for lack of human prey, but this one's not been eaten, just bitten." Sidney fell silent now, pulling a watch from her pocket and counting beneath her breath for a while. Finally, she released her grasp and raised her head once more.

"Thirty-eight," she said, with a light sigh. "Normal rate for this age should be more like eighty. No wonder the blood's so sticky. Go ahead," she added, nodding at Hoffman, who reacted with a slight start, frowning at her. "What?" she asked, scornfully, facing him down. "You know the procedure. Get on with it."

Hoffman's lip curled, but this was less a sneer than it was a faint rime of discomfort, which passed across his features like a wisp of smoke and was just as transient. In its wake it left his face smooth and slack, and he lifted his hand, placing the point of the knife to the paper-thin skin of the walker's shoulder with a soft indrawn breath that might otherwise have passed unheard. Then, narrowing his eyes, he leaned in a little closer and pressed the blade down hard, puncturing the skin.

Two things happened at once. The walker let out a shriek, arching its spine, and Hoffman ducked back, but not quickly enough; a lick of blood caught him across the face and splashed a thick crimson stripe across his cheek. He reached up, meaning to wipe it away, and then seemed to reconsider and instead directed a hostile, quizzical glare at Sidney, which she fielded and interpreted.

"It's just an automatic response," she said, quietly, as the creature lapsed back into stillness, uttering a choked growl as it did so. "I don't think she's in any pain."

"She?" echoed Hoffman, his features carefully immobile. _Too _carefully so.

"_Yes_, Detective," Sidney admonished him. "It won't kill you to show a little mercy."

He looked away for a second, surrendering, and then returned to his wretched task, adjusting his grip on the knife and completing the cut. This time the walker remained still, although it keened quietly as he drew a second diagonal slash, and then, finally, sliced the blade downward with an efficient movement belied only by the briefest of troubled grimaces. The resulting Y-shaped incision looked clean, but as they both watched, it finally began to fill with blood, which oozed from the edges of the wound and began to trickle down onto the table, painting the creature's white skin as it went.

"Step back now," said Sidney, moving closer and reaching out. She hesitated for a second, swallowing, and then peeled back the skin, lifting it away from the ribcage quite easily and exposing first the breastbone and then the entrails. There was very little resistance, and even beneath a wealth of blood, she could see that the revealed bones were a smooth blue-white. Sidney cast her eyes over the pulsating lungs, now barely quivering with each breath, and the heart, thumping out a languorous, convulsive rhythm just beneath the edge of the sternum. Lower than this, the softer portions were dark and atrophied, almost shrivelled, and looked half dried out.

"We'll start with the heart, I think," she said, then returned her attention to Hoffman, and tilted her head at him. He was staring at the creature's face, but he was noticeably unfocused and it was doubtful whether he was seeing much of anything in front of him. He had paled significantly, and there were fine dark circles beneath his eyes. Sidney cast her own gaze at the walker's expression. It was still alive and conscious, but it seemed to have gone into some kind of trance, and its jaw was hanging open and askew as its breath whistled sharply both in and out.

"Look," she said, after waiting a while to see if the detective would snap out of it on his own, "what's done is done. All we can do now is make the most of the opportunity. Believe me," she continued, "she's not suffering and she's barely conscious. Anything you see is only a reflex, and it's..."

Sidney's voice tailed off, though her mouth continued to work in silence for a second. It was this that finally broke through Hoffman's distant reverie, and he whipped his head up and around, regarding her sharply.

"It's what?" he asked.

"_Reflex,_" said Sidney, once more, this time to herself. "I've been so stupid. Wait," she said, a little louder now, and stripped off the bloodstained gloves with an impatient tug, throwing them into a corner and looking around the room for a second, her eyes wide and urgent. Eventually, she rooted in her pocket and brought out a pencil stub, nodding at it in satisfaction before moving to the end of the table and cupping one hand beneath the heel of the walker's bare, cold foot.

Hoffman watched in growing bewilderment as she scratched the pencil gently but briskly up the skin on the sole of the foot, and as he watched, the creature's toes splayed in response, curling up and spreading apart. Sidney smiled slightly, clearly engaged by this response, and then she moved once more, brushing past the detective and seizing one of its hands instead.

"Mind telling me what the fuck you're doing?" he asked, irritably.

"Be quiet," she told him, dismissively, and then flicked at its fingers once or twice. This time he could see no immediately discernible reaction to this treatment beyond a momentary twitch in its thumb, but once more, something had evidently pleased Sidney no end. That tiny grin broadened as she let go of the creature's wrist and turned back to Hoffman, seemingly heedless that he was now looming over her with an impatient fire crackling in his expression.

"We may have found a way out of this," she said, her voice shaking with restrained excitement and her eyes sparkling wildly as they roamed his features.

He was about to respond when the door creaked open.

Andrea stared at the scene before her as her eyes widened. She took in everything in a rapid flicker of snapshots: Hoffman, his face streaked with clotted blood and the blade in his gloved hand still wet with dark gore. Sidney, her head swinging around and her lips thinning. Finally, she looked at the young walker on the table. It was sliced open from neck to groin, drenched and almost drowning in its own blood and yet still struggling weakly against the chains that held it, its exposed lungs heaving grotesquely inside the prison of its ribs.

"Oh my God," she said, hearing the hysteria approaching her voice. "For pity's sake, kill her! What's wrong with you both? _Jesus!_" She clamped her hand over her own mouth now, fearing that if she didn't, the very next thing she let loose would be a full-blooded scream that simply would not stop until she either ran out of air or passed out.

Sidney moved first, skirting the table and hurrying over.

"Come with me," she said, gently, reaching out; but Andrea backed away, almost stumbling, shaking her head.

"Don't touch me," she snapped, drawing a deep breath and regretting it at once; the air in the room reeked of exposed viscera, decay and cold death. She fought the urge to retch and turned razor-sharp eyes to Hoffman, who had so far not moved a muscle. "Kill her," she said, her lips drawn back. "You kill her right _now_ or swear I'll see you in hell."

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sidney nod at the detective, who drew his pistol and placed the muzzle into the tangled hair at the side of the child's head.

Andrea lowered her gaze as he fired, but it was far, far too late.


	21. Chapter 21

It had taken some time to summon the group from their assorted corners of the building, but by the time everyone had gathered in the workshop the close-knit grapevine had done its work and the atmosphere was both tense and extremely confused.

Andrea was standing off to one side, her back against the wall, watching Sidney and Hoffman through red-rimmed eyes. Sidney was sat on a table with her hands clasped in front of her and her feet swinging from time to time, looking almost girlish in her composure as she waited for everyone to settle down, although something about the movement of her eyes suggested that this apparent serenity was a carefully crafted act. Hoffman remained some distance away, hardly seeming to be a part of events, but as he flicked his gaze at Andrea, she looked away. There was nothing there that she wanted to see.

By degrees, the group fell silent, and now they were all focused on Sidney, who shifted a little as she felt the weight of that combined stare, but eventually restrained herself and began to speak.

"Before I say anything," she said, slowly, "I want you all to know that everything you're about to hear is conjecture on my part. I don't have the time or the facilities to confirm my conclusions, but it's a _chance_, and a better one than you've had so far."

She hesitated now, as if pausing for questions or comments, but in their absence, she went on.

"I tested the subject for the Babinski and Hoffmann reflexes," – here she ignored a soft, amused grunt from beside her – "and both came up positive. Setting aside the details, both of these are abnormal reactions that indicate very serious damage to the medulla oblongata. The brain-stem," she added, as an afterthought, translating for the benefit of her audience.

This did not appear to get much of a reaction from the assembly, but eventually, Shane glanced around at his companions before speaking out.

"You mean the virus is affectin' the brain?" he asked, seeming slightly embarrassed. "Dr. Jenner told us that. Ain't no news. Sorry, ma'am," he finished, and then wound down as Sidney laid a firm, patient stare upon him for a second.

"I have a great deal of respect for the CDC's efforts," she told him, "but I suspect they were looking in the wrong place all along, and also failed to try anything so basic as a reflex test. The answer's not in the virus, but in the walkers. To answer your question, Deputy: not quite. The virus is attacking the only part of the brain that still remains functional, and what's more," she went on, pausing for a preparatory breath, "if I'm right, the damage is _degenerative_."

This time, the response was little short of incendiary, and Sidney held up a hand to quell the sudden outburst of conversation in front of her. In the interim, Andrea watched her cast a low, sidelong glance at Hoffman, who seemed to have turned inward, and might as well have been carved from marble.

"People," said Sidney, calmly, speaking over the hubbub until it died away beneath her soothing tone, "I'm going to speculate for you, and I want you to remember that that's _all_ it is. The cerebral cortex is rendered inoperable. Nonetheless, there are certain of its functions that the walkers still possess, such as sensory processing and motor control, which are presumably now being routed through the medulla instead and putting it under the kind of stresses it was never designed to take. In short, I believe they're burning out."

"You mean they're dyin'?"

Everyone looked around; including Hoffman, Andrea noted. Sophia had spoken up from her perch on her mother's knee, and Carol looked understandably pained at this worryingly adult observation, but said nothing to quell the girl. Sidney offered the child a bright, warm smile from across the floor and nodded a little. She followed this with a slight cough, and then her expression grew serious once more.

"There are so many variables here I won't even attempt to list them," she said. "The lesions could be pre-mortem, although it would be highly unusual for a young girl to display even one, let alone both responses. The damage may not be progressive after all. Even if it is, I have no way of predicting a time scale. Weeks, months, maybe even years." She shrugged helplessly. "All I can offer you with this is a little hope."

"So, supposin' you're right," said Rick, after a lot of quiet thought; he had not, in fact, spoken for a long time, "what can we expect to happen?"

"Well, brain-stem damage can show up in a lot of ways," said Sidney, pausing to look up at the ceiling, as if for inspiration, "but typically, I'd expect first loss of fine motor function, then dizziness and loss of balance, unconsciousness, cardiopulmonary shutdown, and death." She sighed shortly. "Whether it'll work that way on a reanimated corpse, who can say?"

"There's only one problem with that," said a quiet voice, from off to the side. Diana bore up under the heat of sudden scrutiny, pushed herself out of the corner in which she'd been lurking and swiped her hair out of her eyes before continuing. "There's no loss of motor skills. If anything, they're _learning_. I was almost killed because one of them dodged when I took a swing at it."

"I'm gonna swear there was something wrong with that thing before we brought it in," said Hoffman, his brow furrowed. "It looked pretty spaced out."

"Did I ask _you?_" said Diana, acid dripping from every word; though she was not surprised, Andrea was nonetheless shocked at the teenager's sudden attack of bare-faced hostility, particularly in front of so many witnesses. If Diana was bothered by this public display, however, she merely shrugged it off and looked back at Sidney, her eyebrow raised.

"I'm going to say it again," replied Sidney, with what sounded like the tiniest strain upon her patience, "I have no clear answers for you or anybody else. Perhaps the child was infected before the others, or perhaps it has something to do with a higher metabolic rate. And _now_," she said, her tone becoming distinctly edged, "you're going to apologise to Detective Hoffman."

She might as well have slapped the girl for the reaction this caused. Diana's dark eyes widened in disbelief, and she raised a trembling hand to her throat for a moment before it sagged back to her side once more. The entire gathering had fallen silent; so silent, in fact, that even from across the room, Andrea heard Diana draw in a deep, shivering breath.

"What?" she asked, her incredulity sliding a little way towards outright anger.

"You heard me well enough," said Sidney. "I won't have you speaking to people that way."

Hoffman looked like a man undecided between shock and puzzlement; his expression registered a difficult amalgam of both as he glanced between the pair, but otherwise held his peace. Diana, for her part, had whitened to the point that the only colour in her face were twin pink patches of high flush on her cheeks. Her lower lip was shaking slightly, and Andrea braced herself for an outburst, but Diana – against all expectation – finally subsided an inch at a time, though she did so as if making progress in the teeth of a hurricane. It seemed to take her an even greater effort of will, however, to meet the detective's gaze. Given the depth of that fixed stare, Andrea sympathised.

"I'm sorry," she said, very quietly, and then looked sidelong at Sidney for a second; what she saw there evidently told her that this was not enough. "I'm sorry I was rude to you," she added, raising her voice, though it cracked as she did so. "It won't happen again."

Hoffman accepted this with a brief nod, but otherwise remained both silent and still and continued to watch the girl.

Sidney settled down now, seeming to have run out of steam, and Andrea noticed that, all of a sudden, the light had faded from her eyes and she looked very small and fragile and quite tired. She reached out to her side without looking, found the handle of her cane and slipped down from the table, approaching Andrea and apparently ignoring everyone else in the room in spite of their curious stares.

"Can I talk to you?" she asked.

"Sure," said Andrea, after what she hoped was a respectably short pause.

"In private, please," added Sidney, nodding at a side door.

Battling a small, instinctive urge to refuse, and not seeing that she had any other option, Andrea followed the other woman into the small room beyond, the one that contained nothing but a bare gurney and a set of steel trays. She waited, uncomfortable and apprehensive in what suddenly felt like a dimly-lit sepulchre, until Sidney had closed the door and turned around. In the low light, her expression was hard to read, and was carried only by a pair of bright sparks, one in the centre of each wide eye.

"You have to understand that Diana's very protective of me," she said, presently, and Andrea frowned in momentary bewilderment; this was not what she'd expected to hear. She pounced upon it, though.

"No," she said, emphatically, shaking her head slowly. "There's more to it than that."

"There really isn't, you know," Sidney insisted, gently. "She lost her mother, and, just about a week ago, her father as well. She's terrified of losing _everything_, and besides that the last thing she wants is to appear weak in front of other people, so you can appreciate I hated to do what I did just now," she sighed heavily, "but I have to put her on a better path than this."

"Is this really why you wanted to talk to me?" asked Andrea, out of the blue; the words had spilled from her lips before she'd run them by even a first thought, let alone a second.

"It's one of the reasons," said Sidney, regarding her closely now, "and I just thought I'd answer you before you asked. There is something else, though," she added, and then looked down for a moment, readjusting her grip on the handle of the cane, somewhat distractedly. "I tried to warn you," she said, presently, raising her head once more, "but you didn't listen, did you?"

"How'd you know?" asked Andrea, dropping her shoulders.

"I didn't until now, but I'll take that as an admission," Sidney told her, with a small smile that bore no humour whatsoever. "Now you feel betrayed, yes?"

"Betrayed ain't quite the right word," said Andrea, avoiding Sidney's gaze for a second to give herself time to think, which was proving extremely difficult under that gleaming gaze.

The trouble was, she realised, that it _was _the right word, and it was hard to substitute another. Whether or not it was a rational feeling was not what concerned her now. She had submitted to Hoffman's advances with brazen haste, had surrendered body and soul to the jaws of the animal beneath his skin, and had ultimately placed her trust in his ability to keep it in check.

(_sometimes...animals just don't watch who they bite_)

And yet...something was still deeply and profoundly wrong. Andrea still could not decide where the most crucial lie of all resided: with Sidney, or Hoffman, or somewhere in the silent, unfathomable gulf between the two. She could think of many questions, but none that she dared ask.

"You'll understand I don't feel I've gotta explain myself to you," she said, eventually.

Sidney nodded politely. "Of course not," she said, "but you may want to consider explaining things to _yourself_ at some point. You had reasons for your choices and only you know what they are," she went on, "so you're the only person who can decide if a line's been crossed."

Andrea held a hand to her forehead for a moment, paused to pinch the bridge of her nose and then looked back up at Sidney with a quiet, weary little laugh.

"Y'all talk in riddles the whole damn time," she said, shaking her head.

"So I've been told," said Sidney, so soberly that Andrea half suspected she was being mocked somewhere in there, "but everything will make sense to you eventually."

"When?" asked Andrea.

"_Soon_."

* * *

**(A/N: Yes, really, Hoffmann's reflex. I found it far too charming a coincidence to ignore...)**


	22. Chapter 22

The cellar steps were gloomy, but Andrea didn't bother switching on the light. Instead, she pulled her sweater around her to ward off the chill that lay ahead of her and made her way down, keeping one hand to the wall to guide her on her way.

Her sleep – at least, what little as she'd managed to snatch – had been restless, and plagued by nightmares that she could not now recall in any detail. She'd woken to the sound of Dale's gentle snores from across the room. He was supposed to be keeping watch, but had fallen asleep in the chair by the door in spite of the fact that it could not possibly have been comfortable enough for this. Andrea hadn't the heart to wake him, guessing that he must have been exhausted, so she simply offered him a fond smile and drifted past on her way to the cellars.

That smile was gone by the time she reached the bottom of the steps, however, and with good reason; the corridor ahead of her was both chilly and stifling at one and the same time, and it was steeped in such a malevolent atmosphere that she could almost feel it reaching out to envelop her. One of the wall lights at the end of the passage was shorting out intermittently, dimming from time to time, and occasionally it would go out altogether for a few seconds.

Andrea knew that Hoffman was sleeping down there, but there were several doors leading off the passage and she had no idea which of the rooms he might be in. She thinned her lips for a moment and summoned just enough courage to take the first step forward into the cellar proper, after which she hoped her progress might prove a little less daunting.

After finding nothing but several locked doors, she finally located the detective, sleeping on the floor in a small, bare room with one arm folded beneath his cheek and his hair a little tousled. The door was ajar, so she pushed it wider, anticipating the creak of the hinges, but they moved in eerie silence until the gap was wide enough for her to slip through.

He didn't stir as she approached, moving closer until she heard the quiet purr of his breathing. In spite of the fact that Andrea's every instinct advised her against pursuing her current course, she knelt down at his side and reached out, her hand trembling.

He moved so fast that she couldn't even breathe, let alone react; and within a fraction of a second, Andrea was pinned to the floor beneath the detective's weight, one of his hands clamped roughly over her mouth and the other restraining her wrists above her head. She froze, staring into Hoffman's eyes, which she saw were still full of sleep. He seemed to come to, and removed his hand from her mouth. Other than this, though, he stayed just as he was as Andrea finally remembered to struggle beneath him.

"What the hell are you doing?" he muttered, bewildered. He shifted now, releasing her hands and pushing himself up. Seizing the opportunity, Andrea sat up, rubbing her bruised arms and directing a meaningful stare in his direction before softening her gaze a little, reminding herself that she'd been partly to blame for what had just taken place.

"I couldn't sleep," she said. "There's something I hafta ask." She paused, seeing his expression and answering it. "No, it couldn't wait until mornin'," she said. Hoffman frowned, then sat back, settled his shoulders against the wall and looked at her expectantly.

"Didn't you feel any pity at all for that child?" asked Andrea, trying to scrub the memory of what she'd seen from her head, aware that this was an exercise in futility. Her mind had carefully filed away a series of terrifying, brutal snapshots, from the curved dash of blood on the detective's cheek to the splash of the young walker's brains on the floor.

"That wouldn't have solved anything," he said.

"Is that a yes or a no?" she demanded.

"It's an observation," he said, simply, shrugging. "Pity's the one thing we can't afford any more," he added, "and one of these days it's gonna get you killed." He hesitated, and seemed to recant a little of his brusqueness. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry you had to see that. I had to –"

Hoffman stopped abruptly and reacted, moving closer to her and taking her head in his hands; he had seen her tears before she'd been aware of them herself, but now they were gathering strength, streaking her face and dripping from her chin. Her first sob was small and breathless, but the second was steeped in anguish, and threatened to choke her. She tried to turn away to hide her weeping, the movement reflexive, but he held her fast.

"Stop that," he said, and while the words were abrupt, his tone was soft, which was yet another of his many inconsistencies. In response, she inhaled heavily and fought for calm. She didn't know for sure why she'd been crying to begin with; yes, it had something to do with the memory of the blade in Hoffman's hand, still running with blood, but there was far more to it than that. Her attempts at plumbing these depths went without success, though, and as the tributaries dried up, so did the river itself.

As she stilled herself, she realised his hands were moving, pushing her sweater off her shoulders and pulling at her shirt. She took a moment to react to this, her reactions blurred by misery and confusion, but then she responded by shoving at his shoulder and squirming backwards until her shoulders hit the wall behind her.

"You think it's that easy?" she spat, her cheeks colouring in anger. "Bastard!"

"So tell me to stop," said Hoffman, grabbing the back of her neck and pulling her into a kiss. This time there was nothing courteous about it; he was ferocious and hungry, almost predatory, thrusting his tongue deep into her mouth and devouring her.

_Damn you_, thought Andrea, and before she could think any further than this, she'd sunk her teeth into his lip. Hoffman broke away with a gasp and drew back sharply, and in the following second of confusion for them both, she slapped him as well. It was an unplanned act, and she didn't have enough leverage to put all of her fury into the blow, as she'd intended, but it was effective enough for all that. She braced herself, anticipating his inevitable reaction.

It failed to materialise. Hoffman stayed just where he was as a small bead of blood swelled at the corner of his mouth, apparently going quite unheeded. He cocked his head at her, his eyes shimmering in the dim light, and for a while, the only sign of his arousal was the shallow, rapid rise and fall of his chest.

"You wanna hurt me?" he asked, quietly.

"No," said Andrea. _Liar_, whispered her hindbrain.

"Go ahead," he told her, "if it'll make you feel better."

Andrea abandoned all conscious thought in that second, throwing herself across the space between herself and the detective and landing a vicious blow on his jaw that turned his head. She followed this with another, and then another, until he finally flinched under her assault and reached up, taking hold of her arm and gripping her wrist so hard that her fingers tingled painfully. For a second she caught his gaze, which was still unmoved, and then she ducked her head and bit his hand, opening up another wound alongside the old scar. He suffered this in stoic silence before reacting to the pain, seizing a fistful of her hair and pulling her head back. Andrea whimpered a little but stared him down as she swallowed a mouthful of his blood.

"My turn," he hissed, letting go of Andrea's hair and pushing her down on her back, tearing open her shirt with both hands and lowering his head to her bare flesh. She stifled a shriek as his teeth closed on one nipple, twisting it, then suckling fiercely as he ran one hand up between her legs and found the heat there, and she felt her juices flowing beneath his attentions.

Hoffman released her abused nipple and ran his tongue up the smooth valley between her breasts, moving up and up, tracing a warm path over her neck and bringing his mouth alongside her ear, where he bit at her soft throat before speaking to her, his voice low and urgent.

"I can feel how wet you are," he whispered, his hand still moving and squeezing relentlessly between her trembling thighs. "I don't think you _really_ want me to stop, do you? I know what you need." So saying, he tugged at the waistband of her pants, jerking them down and off her hips in one rough movement. Her hands moved of their own accord now, and she reached down to assist him in his efforts.

Andrea parted her legs as she felt Hoffman's fingers gliding up the cool flesh of her inner thigh, stroking and kneading there before creeping inside her. She was profusely and indecently wet, and he pushed a little deeper now, sliding through her slippery fluid so easily that she hardly realised that he had all four fingers inside her to the knuckle. She writhed as he leaned in closer, increasing that pressure further still, and as she finally realised his aim, she felt a stab of fear that was nevertheless mixed with a terrifying surge of enticing pleasure. She struggled for a second, whining.

"God, no, I can't," she gasped, her voice shivering with low panic. He raised his head and gazed up at her, paralysing her; his eyes glowed with cold intent, and she now saw that the monster had caught the scent of prey and snapped its chains.

"You're going to take it all," he told her, twisting his wrist a little to find a deeper place inside her. "I told you: you're mine, and you'll give me _everything_." He said nothing else, but merely exhaled harshly and pushed again, overcoming the last of her body's resistance and forcing his whole hand into her.

It hurt, so much so that for a second she was blinded by the sudden wrench of pain and an involuntary tear ran from the corner of her eye. He held quite still as she arched her back, her head thrown to one side and her thighs shuddering. Little by little, though, the savage agony abated, and soon, with the merest twitch and curl of his fingers deep inside her cunt, Andrea was convulsing with febrile ecstasy. She drew a deep breath and held it, her lungs straining, as Hoffman dipped his head a little lower, his breath fanning her skin; and then he applied the very tip of his tongue to her clit.

This most delicate of touches pushed her over the edge, and she exploded into a furious climax, thrashing so violently that she felt as if her spine might snap. Hoffman shoved her down hard, pressing his palm flat against her heaving belly as her muscles clamped down on his hand and flicking his tongue across her clit over and over again to prolong her orgasm.

Andrea, burning on a pyre of pleasure, could take no more of this, but since she could not find her voice in a sea of hoarse, desperate shrieks she signalled surrender by tangling her fingers in his hair and pulling as hard as she could, dragging his head up. Though her vision was blurred and swimming, she could see that he was smiling in triumph. He flexed his fingers inside her once more, causing another bolt of white hot fire to rip through her, and then withdrew his hand.

She sagged, suffering a head-to-toe tremor as every muscle in her body uncurled at once, and she found just enough strength to roll over onto the bare cellar floor. For a few minutes she lay prone, salving her fiery skin against the cold surface, catching what little breath she could recover and, she found, enjoying the fierce ache inside her. There was a tiny thought in her mind, little more than an echo, that remained horrified at what he had done to her and how it had made her feel, but she pushed it away with insolent ease.

When she felt she could muster enough power in her arms, Andrea pushed herself up from the floor and turned over her shoulder. Hoffman was watching her carefully, though that self-satisfied smile was still lurking at one corner of his mouth. She focused on this for a minute, eventually mirroring it with one of her own, and then – with a burst of strength that came from nowhere – she turned and pounced, slamming him down, mounting him and driving her fingernails into the skin of his chest to subdue him.

Her small grin broadened as she saw that she had finally managed to take him by surprise. He lifted his head, staring up at her in mild shock, but she saw that he was relishing the way she'd clawed at him, and though she'd knocked the breath from his lungs she hadn't wiped the smile from his face.

She growled, and this time, it was a _real_ growl, rough with desire. She circled her hips, grinding herself against him, and with a surge of pleasure she found that he was already as hard as a rock beneath her attentions. She lingered for a few seconds more, watching his face as she sank her nails even deeper into his pectoral muscles, seeing him wince, and then she was unable to restrain herself any longer. She moved quickly, dismounting, pulling at his belt, unzipping his pants and freeing his erection.

"Fuck,_ yes_," snarled Hoffman in the throes of a deep tremor as she closed her mouth around his shaft. She clamped her lips tight and her tongue traced out slow sweeps and circles as she lowered her head even further, taking him into her throat, this time both willing and wanting.

Andrea tasted the sweet fluid trickling from the head of his cock as she moved her head up and down, slowly at first, but then deeper and faster as he shook, loosing a sharp gasp. She slid her hands up and across his chest as she worked at his length, finding his nipples, pinching and scratching at them as she continued to lick and suckle, never stopping, feeling him growing harder still with each stroke. He grabbed her hair hard enough to hurt and thrust up into her mouth.

"Don't stop," he panted savagely, his muscles tensing under her roaming fingers. "Don't you fucking stop, whore."

She knew he couldn't last much longer, and as she moaned softly around his flesh he went into spasm beneath her hands, driving his hips up, his cock pulsing between her lips as he climaxed. Andrea closed her eyes in satisfaction as her mouth was flooded almost to overflowing, and she swallowed eagerly, again and again, as he erupted on the back of her tongue.

She stayed quite still, her head down and her lips sealed, until she was sure he was quite spent; then she lifted her gaze to his, moving back a little, taking his cock from her mouth and savouring the bitter salt after-taste of him as she watched him recover his senses with what looked like considerable effort.

Fully sated now, she moved up his body, gliding alongside him like a snake and looking down at him for a second. Hoffman reached up and grasped the back of her neck, pulling her head closer and sliding his tongue into her mouth. For a moment they shared the last traces of his semen, and, to Andrea's faint surprise, he seemed to enjoy the taste as much as she had. She pressed herself closer until her sensitive nipples brushed through the sweat-soaked hair of his chest and caught at the tiny specks of blood her nails had drawn, and then drew away, sinking to the floor and laying her head on his quivering shoulder.

"Did that help?" he asked, his voice thick with exhausted satisfaction.

"I don't know," she said, in all honesty, after what felt like the longest, most difficult pause of her whole life. "I don't understand, Mark. You looked so peaceful when I watched you sleepin'," she went on, sighing painfully. "Everythin' you've seen – don't you _ever_ have bad dreams?"

"Never," he said, flatly.

Andrea didn't want to look up and see the lie in his eyes.


	23. Chapter 23

Diana awoke with a start, her eyes snapping open in the darkness; but for a few seconds, she couldn't work out why.

She was sleeping alone, in a room off the passage that led to the cellars, having crept away after the others were asleep. It had not been an entirely conscious decision, but she had found herself unable to rest, especially since she'd felt Sidney's gaze falling on the back of her neck before she lay down.

The room was in silence, and all of a sudden, she felt it was too quiet, wreathed in the kind of stillness that was soaked in an air of anticipation and left her feeling – somehow – _watched_. Nevertheless, something concrete and external had definitely woken her. She rolled over and up, backing against the wall for a moment and staring at the gap where she'd left the door ajar. The lights in the corridor were on, but were casting more shadows than anything else, and the loudest sound in Diana's world was now the flutter of her own racing heartbeat in her ears.

She was about to move, to unclench her trembling muscles, when she heard it: a soft cry from the direction of the cellars. Reacting wildly, she struggled to her feet and, out of instinct, looked around for the axe as another wail pierced the air, this one sharper and more plaintive. This time she was sure. It was more than a cry – it was a scream that had been blunted by distance.

Diana closed her fingers on the handle of the axe without looking, scraping her nails along the polished wood before fixing her hand upon it. The head scraped up the wall for a second as she lifted the weapon, and the sound grated upon her ears before she readjusted her grip and swung it around in front of her in both hands. The blade shook slightly as she pricked her ears and listened fiercely for a long time, trying not to breathe too loudly in spite of her building panic.

There seemed to be nothing else to hear, but Diana was now trembling from head to toe, and she stepped forward, pushing open the door with her shoulder and sidling out into the corridor. It was empty. She adjusted her balance a little and moved forward a step, but as she did so, she saw movement at the far end of the passage and slipped back through the door, secreting herself in the shadows and watching closely.

She saw Andrea stumble out of the gloom at the top of the cellar steps, and with a lurch in her gut, she realised that the woman was limping slightly and holding onto the wall as she moved. Diana moved back a little further, her pulse racing, as Andrea staggered into the light and leaned against the wall, closing her eyes for a second; her shirt was ripped and speckled with blood, and her face was streaked with the livid tracks of tears.

"_Jesus_," whispered Diana, under her breath, as Andrea seemed to come to once more and collected herself, moving past the door and back into the workshop, breathing heavily in the still, stagnant air. The hinges creaked behind her, and then the silence descended once more.

Diana didn't realise that she was holding her breath until she finally released it once more, by which time it whistled painfully in the cold gloom and left her lungs aching in its wake. This dull pain galvanised her, and as she stepped out into the corridor once more, she slitted her eyes and tightened her grip on the axe until her hands went numb. Then, with a soft curse, she headed for the cellars.

The steps were abominably chilly, and grew all the more so as she descended, finally reaching the central passage. Most of the doors were closed, but some instinct led her on, drawing her into the depths of the building even as she dragged her feet in response to some unattended instinct that tried to compel her to turn and run. She slowed her pace, but kept moving until something shifted behind her and she swung around, lifting the axe.

Mallick stumbled back a pace, raising his hands to her.

"Shit, Diana," he hissed, his eyes wide with fear. "What the hell's wrong with you?"

"It's started," she told him, quietly, lowering her arms once more and curling her lip at him. "I told you he'd hurt someone else but you wouldn't fucking _listen_ to me, would you? Nobody listened to me," she added, viciously. "I'm going to deal with him once and for all. Don't even think about trying to stop me," she said, weighing the axe meaningfully.

"What are you talking about?" asked Mallick, mixing fresh bewilderment with his terror, both of which acted in concert to further blanch his already sallow features.

"You'll see," she told him, and turned her back, heading for the door to the room where the Rack stood.

It was, in a strange way, inevitable, and Diana found no time to wonder how she'd known, but that was where she found Hoffman, standing with his back to her and studying the mechanism in eerie silence with his hands hanging loose at his sides. She stood in the doorway for a second, her head on one side, watching him in equal quietude, until it seemed he felt her gaze falling upon him and turned at last. When he did so, she saw no trace of surprise in his eyes, which caused a momentary stab of disappointment; however, she noted a fresh red bruise flowering on his jawline and a trace of blood at the corner of his mouth, and found time to feel glad that Andrea had at least put up some resistance.

"Okay," he said, evenly, looking her up and down. "I give up. What's your problem?"

Diana's jaw sagged; she had gone through a thousand intricate scenarios in her mind, playing this confrontation out behind her eyes over and over again until she dizzied from it, trying to anticipate everything he might say to her when the moment struck – but this was beyond expectation. He really didn't _know?_

"You're my problem, motherfucker," she said, venomously, moving further into the room in spite of her unease. "You," she repeated. "Everything about you. You've been a stain on the planet long enough and I'm not going to let you kill anyone else." She paused for breath, feeling her cheeks burn, and raised the axe to shoulder height, slapping the head against her palm. "What did you do to her?"

Mallick had arrived in the room and was edging around her, but she didn't dare turn her head. She saw Hoffman's gaze flicker over her shoulder for a second and then return to her own.

"Nothing I'm gonna explain to _you_," said Hoffman, his voice still level but now glazed with clear contempt. "It's finished. Everyone's dead and it's all over. Get that through your fucking head, why don't you?"

"Wrong," said Diana, meaningfully, shifting her weight slightly. "Not everyone's dead."

Hoffman choked on his amazement, his brows raising. "Wait," he said, slowly and incredulously, "is that what this is about? You thought you were going to walk in here and kill me? You?" He snorted derisively. "Your father wasn't good enough to take me out, and you _certainly_ don't have what it takes," he added. "Now get outta here, because this is getting boring."

"Coward," she spat. It had been an instinctive retort, barely under her conscious control, but his reaction nevertheless came as no surprise; somewhere at the back of her mind she'd known very well the one word that would break him. The scathing amusement fled his features to be replaced by a look drenched in unadulterated poison. Unfortunately, Diana was so preoccupied with watching his expression that she didn't see his hand drop to his hip, and before she could react he'd drawn his gun, crossed the distance between them in two swift strides and thrust the muzzle up beneath her chin.

"Whoa, whoa!" yelped Mallick, finally finding his voice and darting forward, waving his hands in desperation. "Detective, you don't want to –"

"You want some too, asshole?" growled Hoffman, without looking around.

Mallick retreated, shaking badly. Diana, meanwhile, had quite stopped breathing as the cold steel bruised the soft flesh of her throat, but now she released one long, slow exhalation and bored her gaze into Hoffman's as hard as she could.

"Go on, then," she mocked him, her mouth curling slightly. "I called you a coward because that's exactly what I see. Why don't you prove me right? This is what you do best, isn't it, or won't it be enough fun just shooting me?"

"You little bitch," he hissed, jabbing the gun up a little to accentuate his point. "Where the fuck do you get off talking to me like that?"

"We could have left the city along with everyone else," said Diana, slipping seamlessly into a calm so soft and peaceful it was almost dreamlike. "If it weren't for you, my dad might still be alive. So you'd better pull that trigger," she said, flatly, " because one way or another, only one of us is walking out of this room."

The air sang like a plucked harp-string in the wake of her words, and she kept watch, not blinking, staring into the depths of those barbarous blue eyes at a range so close it chilled her bones and almost stopped her heart in her chest. In the tortured silence she thought she heard the trigger creak as his finger tightened infinitesimally, and then, without warning, he dropped his arm and took a step back, breathing out.

"I've had enough," he told her, wearily, holstering the pistol once more. "I really don't give a shit what you think of me and I'm not gonna be provoked by a little girl with big ideas." He paused, nodding at the door. "Now beat it," he said, coldly, and turned around with a harsh sigh.

Something cracked in Diana's soul. She eyed Hoffman's back for a second and then stepped to one side, swinging the axe, her teeth bared in a desperate, soundless snarl. She had meant to sink the blade into his neck, but something unexpected, some reflexive tremor in her wrists, twisted the weapon in her hands, and the flat connected with the back of his head with a dull smack instead. He pitched forward, stunned. She lowered the weapon and gasped for air, the indrawn breath raising a painful stitch in her chest.

"Jesus, Diana," said Mallick, his eyes wide. "Shit, this is _so_ not good," he added, one hand clamped to the back of his neck in distracted horror. He shuttled his panicky gaze between her and Hoffman a few times and then dropped to his knees, examining the detective more closely.

"He's still breathing," he said, sounding a little more relieved, but not by much, and Diana watched him start to shiver in earnest as he levered himself to his feet once more, his face draining of blood. "What the hell were you thinking?" he demanded. "What are we going to do?"

For long moments, Diana couldn't answer this. All she'd known was that the detective had presented her with an unrivalled opportunity for retribution, and the vengeful little animal that lurked in her heart had sunk its teeth into it. She'd taken fierce pleasure in attacking Hoffman, she wouldn't deny, but the red hot clockwork of fury was now winding down and she hadn't thought to plan past it, hadn't thought further than the weapon in her hands and the target in front of her. She backed up, the head of the axe dragging along the floor with a rough scraping sound, and then turned to look at the Rack.

"Help me," she said, her dark eyes fixed on the device.

Mallick, having followed her gaze, was edging toward the door now, his mouth slack with naked fear. He shook his head mutely.

"You gutless prick," she snapped, her eyes flaring. "My father saved your life! This is the only chance we'll get to finish what he started, now _help me!_" She punctuated this by swinging the axe again, raising a sharp _clang_ from the ironwork. She watched Mallick cringe away from her for a moment, but he eventually moved back into the room and bent down, taking hold of the detective and turning him over.

Diana had set the weapon aside and was already on her toes, unscrewing the bolts and unbuckling the straps, her hands shaking and her eyes feverish. She had no idea if the mechanism remained in working order, but if not, it would at least serve to contain Hoffman while she came up with another idea. Her eyes strayed down to the axe, propped against the upright beam of the machine, and wondered for a moment if she shouldn't just skip the grandstanding and hack him to pieces instead.

Behind her, Mallick had struggled to lift the detective, and was now shoving him upright with considerable effort. Diana turned to help now, seizing Hoffman's right arm and pushing it into place, slipping his hand into the lock and screwing down the bolt. Mallick had taken care of his left arm, and now stepped back, bending to fix his legs in place as well.

Diana, meanwhile, looked around, spotted an empty packing crate, dragged it across the floor and stepped up onto it. This brought her head level with Hoffman's, which had sagged, his chin resting on his chest. She reached out and placed smooth fingers on either side of his face, tilting his head back. Not until that point did it strike her that it was the first time she'd ever touched his flesh, and for a few seconds she stood as if rooted, studying the features of the man she intended to kill.

His eyelids flickered momentarily, and Diana's heart slammed against her breastbone in urgent panic. She pushed him back against the upright and reached up, twisting the screws on the gear ring until the clamp was tight around his head. This done, she exhaled thankfully and stepped down from the box, standing back to study her handiwork. She looked around to find Mallick, but he had fled. Her lip drew back a little and she returned her attention to the detective instead. He appeared to be drifting back to consciousness.

"What the_ fuck?_" he said, blearily, struggling fitfully against the straps. He jerked his head violently to one side, the movement reflexive, but was stopped by the edge of the clamp, and she watched as the metal laid open a hairline cut on his temple from which there sprang a single bead of blood. The pain of this seemed to drag him the rest of the way to understanding and now he arched his back, snarling impotently. Diana watched him, her eyes shining and her lips set in the softest of smiles.

"I want to play a game," she said, softly. "This one's going to be a little different, I'm afraid. I've saved you the trouble of making a choice. There _is_ no choice. You're going to die and I'm going to stand here and watch it happen."

She stepped closer, head cocked, gazing up into his unblinking eyes as they followed her movements.

"You're out of time, Hoffman," she said, folding her hands before her in a savage parody of youthful innocence. "How does it feel? Call me curious, but I'd like to know. How do you _feel_ knowing you're going to die with your worthless head twisted around backwards?"

Hoffman loosed a rough, guttural sound. For a moment she failed to identify it simply because it was so bizarre and out of place, but eventually realised that he was laughing. Incredibly, he was actually _laughing_ at her.

"That's not how it works, kid," he said at last, through a jagged smile. "Sorry."

"Kid?" she echoed, her voice hollow and her knuckles white. "No, I was a kid once, until someone broke into my room, dragged me out of my bed and tied me up with my mother. After that, somehow, childhood was over." Diana paused, smiling up at him, her expression beatific. "So, I think this is a fitting end to the story."

She broke eye contact now, moving around to the side of the Rack and reaching up to the timer, stroking her fingers across it, wanting to relish the moment. She laid one fingertip on it and held it there, taking a deep breath.

"Game over," she said, and flipped the switch.


	24. Chapter 24

"_Diana!_"

Sidney was standing in the doorway, with Mallick hovering behind her, his expression painted with guilt. She glanced up at the Rack in momentary shock and then just as quickly returned her attention to Diana, who snatched up the axe and held it in front of her, the blade turned outward and wavering as she trembled violently.

"Don't come any closer," she hissed, shaking her head slowly. "He's not getting away. Not this time."

Silence held court between them for a few seconds; seconds marked out by the quiet tick of the timer on the machine. Sidney dropped one hand to the hilt of her claymore, the gesture probably no more than a reflex, but then she seemed to collect herself and removed it once more.

"I'm not going to fight with you, child," she said, smoothly, "but you have to stop this."

"_No!_" Diana shrieked, and now, to her chagrin, she felt hot tears pouring down her cheeks. "This is what Dad wanted. I won't let you betray him. You promised him, Sidney." She wiped her sleeve over her wet face, her chest heaving with strangled sobs. "You fucking _promised!_"

_...swear to me, Sidney, he'd said, his voice strong and steady. Anything, she'd responded. Diana, who had been watching them from a distance, saw her father pull Sidney into a final embrace and whisper into her ear, saying something Diana couldn't hear. Sidney had drawn back, nodded gravely and kissed him on one cold, pale cheek, and then he'd sunk to his knees before her and bowed his head, closing his eyes, adopting one last, strangely peaceful smile..._

"I made your father a solemn vow before he died, yes," Sidney admitted, holding Diana's burning gaze with her own, which was soft and sad. "This wasn't it."

The timer clicked to a halt, and Diana's gut lurched as she heard the gears creak into life behind her. She continued to weep, openly and bitterly, and found that she no longer wanted to watch what was about to take place. The iron screeched for want of grease, but the mechanism turned and she heard Hoffman draw a harsh breath as the device began to twist his right arm back.

"Diana," said Sidney, her voice infinitely gentle, "I love you, and I know this isn't who you really are." She held out her hand. "Give me the axe."

The machine continued to clank, and even above the strident squeal of the gears Diana heard a muffled popping noise, accompanied by a strangled scream from Hoffman. The sound ripped through her, and she took a step forward, placing the weapon in Sidney's outstretched hand and diving aside in one movement, her hands clamped to her ears, loosing an anguished cry of her own.

Sidney wasted no time, stepping over to the junction box on the wall and taking a savage two-handed swing at it, planting the head of the axe into the opening, raising a terrifying spray of blue-white sparks that lit up the room like an arc welder. For a few seconds it wasn't clear if this had worked, but then the Rack groaned once more and ground to a halt. Diana scuttled into the corner by the door, gnawing at her wrist. She felt Mallick wrap an arm around her shoulders and, for once, she accepted his awkward consolation and buried her face in his chest as he held her.

Eventually, she steeled her nerve and risked a sidelong glance at the Rack to see what she'd done. Hoffman had bitten into his tongue so hard that his chin was streaming with fresh blood, and his eyes were glassy with naked agony. Diana quailed, but knew that she would keep on looking. She felt her stomach contract with self-loathing. This was a sight she'd wanted to see for years, something she'd had sketched out in her mind in many different though equally vile ways, but now it was real and in front of her, all she could do was sob with shame.

Sidney jerked her head at Mallick. "Help me get him down," she snapped, then bent to free Hoffman's legs from the machine. Mallick stepped over, stretched up and released the gear on top of the machine, and the detective's head sagged at once, a fresh gout of blood spilling from his lower lip. The pair of them stood up and released his arms from the clamps and straps that held them in place and he promptly slumped across Mallick's shoulder. Sidney assisted him as best she could, and together they lowered Hoffman to the dusty floor, where he seemed to come to at last, the shock clearing from his pale eyes only to be replaced by a sea of exquisite pain.

"Stay still," Sidney told him, and then closed her fingers around his right wrist, squeezing it experimentally before moving her grasp up his forearm and repeating the process. Diana watched her nod to herself and then grip his elbow in both hands, flexing it as far as she dared. Now she moved that professional touch to Hoffman's shoulder and applied pressure, and he snarled, spitting out a small scarlet spray. Sidney moved aside for a second to avoid this, and then took his face between her palms, looking into his eyes until they stopped wandering and focused on her.

"You're lucky," she said, bluntly. "If that strap had been tight it would have snapped your arm. As it is your shoulder's dislocated, but we can soon fix that." She paused, and looked a little closer, as if to make quite sure that he understood what she said next. "This is going to hurt. A_ lot_," she added, coolly.

"Do what you have to," rasped Hoffman, his eyes flickering over to Diana for a second, his gaze soaked with appraisal even through the pain. She backed away from that scrutiny as if it were radioactive, but kept her eyes fixed to the grim performance in front of her as Sidney stood up and nodded at Mallick.

"Sit him up a little and hold him as fast as you can, you hear me?" she said, curling and uncurling her fingers at her sides. Mallick slipped his hands beneath Hoffman's shoulders and lifted him from the floor, ducking his head and shoving the detective's arm behind his neck, then swallowed heavily and steadied his grasp.

"Ready when you are," he said, and gave Hoffman a quick, apprehensive glance. Sidney bent and took Hoffman's forearm in both hands, fingers tightening until her knuckles paled, then lifted one foot and placed it high on his ribs. She exhaled smoothly, checked her balance and pulled as hard as she could, twisting his arm at the same time.

Diana cowered as Hoffman screamed once more, the sound cracked and hoarse this time, but beneath this she thought she heard a tiny click as the joint realigned itself. Sidney released her grasp, wiping their combined sweat from her palms with a cursory gesture, and then tilted her head to one side, watching as Hoffman rolled out of Mallick's restraining arms with a grunt and struggled up. He raised himself onto his knees and dragged the back of his hand across his mouth to wipe away the worst of the blood as he recovered his breath.

"Why'd you do it?" he said, at length. Diana opened her mouth instinctively, but before she could speak it occurred to her that Hoffman's gaze was directed at Sidney, who returned it with ease.

"I'm not through with you yet, Detective," she said, calmly, "that's why. Don't go thinking I've done you any favours," she went on, her eyes cooling a little. "Considering what's ahead of you, there may come a time when you'll wish I'd left you to die. Dying is _easy_," she said, and then, unexpectedly, held out a hand. Hoffman looked down at it, then back up at her face, suspicion prowling across his expression for a second, but Sidney curled her fingers encouragingly and he eventually responded, taking her hand and climbing painfully and inelegantly to his feet, where he swayed a little, flexing his right shoulder and grimacing at the pain this movement brought.

"I pushed her too far," said Sidney, very quietly. "I'm sorry. This wasn't what I intended at all."

The detective looked as if he gave brief consideration to a scornful retort, but if so, the moment passed and his features settled, bit by bit, into a look of knife-edged curiosity instead.

"What _were_ you trying to do?" he asked.

Sidney didn't reply to this. Instead, she glanced around and her brows dropped alarmingly.

"Where's Diana?" she asked, directing a questioning glare at Mallick, who also looked over at the door and shrugged helplessly. "If she's gone without that, then something's wrong," Sidney told him, her voice decorated with urgency, and she nodded at the floor as she spoke, indicating the axe, which lay abandoned in the corner by the door. "We need to find her..." she said, then took a deep, measured breath and returned her gaze to Hoffman, who took a step back at what he saw there.

"...and _you_," she added, "are coming with me."

* * *

Diana couldn't stop the tears from flowing, and each one only increased her confusion.

She had stumbled up the cellar steps without thinking, wandered through the maze of narrow, claustrophobic passages with her eyes stinging and her vision blurring and shoved aside a door at random. Finally running out of strength, she sagged, her shoulders sinking and her head dropping into her hands.

He thoughts were soaked in blood and bile, and as hard as she shook her head and clawed at her cheek, she couldn't seem to dislodge the memory of Hoffman's screams. She couldn't understand it; it should have been so easy. _So easy_. Instead she was overflowing with horror, and it was beginning to dawn on her just how unprepared she'd been, thinking all this time that killing walkers was the same thing.

It wasn't.

Diana pulled at her hair until it caused her eyes to water, one of her braids unravelling beneath this assault and whipping across her face in the rising wind, and she...looked up at last, a cold river of apprehension pouring down her spine as it became clear, at once, that her distracted flight had carried her out of the building and into the yard. Only now did her tears dry up, and she choked back one final half-sob as her eyes widened. The moon was almost full but riding low in the cold sky, casting long bars of black shadow across the gravel and silvering the hair and shoulders of the hunched shape in front of her.

Her hand twitched, but as her fingers curled on thin air she realised that she was unarmed. Outside, alone, and _unarmed_. The walker stepped forward, moving out into the full gleam of the moonlight at last, and she recoiled in revulsion. One side of its face had been stripped clean of both skin and muscle, leaving its teeth bared and its eye round, grey and unblinking in the middle of a red, stringy mess.

Diana's gut seized up in panic and she swung around to run back into the building, but whined like a trapped animal as she saw that there were two more creatures cutting off her retreat, standing between her and the open door and breathing hard, air growling through two throats thick with phlegm. In a moment of sharp, dreadful clarity born of naked fear, she noticed that despite the freezing temperature, the walkers' breath did not condense in the air – and this was, somehow, the greatest terror of all.

She darted her head back again, stumbling away, trying to keep all three of them in her sight. The first of the creatures angled its head at her and then leapt with frightening speed and agility, seizing her by the wrist and striking like a snake. Reflex was Diana's only saviour, and she swung her fist, catching the walker on the cheek and deflecting its bite from her arm. As it reeled, she struck again, this time to its jaw, which cracked on impact and finally dislodged its grasp on her arm.

By this time, however, the other two were closing in fast, and she ducked as one reached out, fingers clawing at her throat. The creature hissed, sounding almost human in its frustration, but Diana had by now lost her balance and found herself on the ground, the loose gravel pricking at her palms as she pushed herself up and turned over her shoulder, her chest heaving wildly and her eyes rolling, struggling for air in the depths of her fright.

There were more walkers pouring into the yard now, more than she could count, advancing upon her in near-perfect silence. Diana let out a high-pitched, wailing breath as she scrambled to her feet and ran for her life, rounding the corner of the building as the pack gave chase.


	25. Chapter 25

Sleep was proving hard to recapture.

Andrea curled up in the corner on her bedroll, a thin blanket around her shoulders and her head tipped back against the wall. Every so often her throat would convulse silently, but she was far from crying; in fact, her eyes were so dry they were smarting painfully. The atmosphere in the workshop was tranquil enough, marred only by Daryl's fitful snores from the adjacent corner, but Andrea's physical and emotional pangs were clawing at her by turns.

Something else nagged at her, and her nameless unease was soon so strong that it overrode all other considerations. A few minutes earlier, as she'd watched from the corner, lying as still as she could, she'd seen Mallick slip into the room and crouch down at Sidney's side, shaking her gently but urgently. Even in the gloom she'd been able to see that the man's eyes were wide with what she could only assign to scarcely subdued panic, and when Sidney sat up, he'd leaned in to whisper into her ear. Sidney, for her part, seemed not to react to whatever it was he'd told her, but she'd nevertheless stood up and touched her hand to the hilt of her sword for a second, a nervous gesture that was there and gone in a second but was none the less ominous for its transience. The pair had then left the room together on quick, quiet feet, headed for the cellars, and had yet to return.

Andrea was just starting to think of following them when a small sound jerked her out of focus.

"Hey now, I'm sorry for startlin' you," said Rick, softly, sitting down beside her and looking her over for a second; she could see that despite appearances, it was a far from casual appraisal, and she was immediately aware of the sight she must present, with her hair awry, her eyes raw from crying and traces of Hoffman's blood drying on the collar of her shirt. Andrea covered her face with her palm for a second and then looked back up at Rick, seeing everything she suspected written quite clearly across his steady gaze. Still, for form's sake, she spoke up anyway.

"What's wrong?" she asked him, and now it was his turn to glance away for a moment. When he returned his attention, though, he was more serious still.

"We're partin' ways with those people in the morning," he said, and though his voice was still velvet it was now barely hiding a core of solid ice. "I shoulda trusted my gut from the start, 'cause I knew somethin' didn't fit right. Detective Hoffman may be a fine cop for all I know," he went on, and now his tone was incontrovertibly chilly, "but he's a pretty lousy human being and maybe I oughta've left him chained up. Did he rape you?"

The question struck Andrea so hard that she sagged back a little, her mouth loosening. She couldn't muster so much as one coherent word, but the expression on Rick's face changed at once, and suggested that she'd better say something quickly.

"No!" she said, a little louder than she'd intended, and she glanced around his shoulder to make sure she hadn't woken any of the others with this exclamation. "No, he didn't," she went on, lowering her voice to an emphatic hiss. "He...we just..." She waved a vague hand at Rick and lowered her gaze, her face burning furiously.

"Andrea," he said, patiently, "you don't have to explain anything. Hell, you're a grown woman and it ain't really my business unless he's hurtin' you," he added, "but you gotta understand what it looks like from here." He sighed heavily and hung his head for a second. "Anyway, my decision's made. They're not coming with us. All four of 'em spook me just a little bit too much and I've got a family to think of."

Andrea was still trying to find her equilibrium, but Rick had spoken quite firmly and relentlessly, which had served to keep her off balance. Now that he had wound down, however, she finally managed to compose a coherent sentence.

"Shouldn't we at least talk about it?" she said. "Diana, she's just –" she went on, but Rick shook his head shortly, cutting across her objection.

"If you want the truth, that kid scares me more'n the others put together," he said, and now he sounded more sad than anything else, though the warning undercurrent was still making its presence felt. "There's somethin' badly _wrong_ there, Andrea. Look me in the eye and tell me you don't agree."

She tried. She steeled her gaze, set her shoulders and looked at him, as he'd requested – and then her throat closed around a poorly constructed denial and strangled it unborn. He was right: the girl was spilling over with some kind of bestial, hell-spawned rage for which there was absolutely no accounting, which served only to increase the chance that it could spiral out of control and put them all at risk. Even so...

"What are you goin' to tell them?" she asked, trying to keep her voice from pleading.

Rick shrugged briefly. "The truth," he said. "Look, they can take care of themselves, you can see that. I ain't seen _anyone_ kill walkers as easy as Sidney, and fact is I'll be kinda sorry to lose her," he went on, looking genuinely downcast, "but as I said: it's decided. I don't want to spend any more time worryin' about the next crazy idea that's gonna get itself into Detective Hoffman's head."

Andrea gave in, exhaling half a breath she hadn't known she'd been holding, and then almost smiled at him, thinking better of it at the last moment, knowing it could well be misunderstood. Instead, she unfolded herself from the corner and stood up, trying to disguise the worst of her discomfort by moving slowly and carefully. He subjected her to a quizzical stare for a second, which she fielded and answered by jerking her head in the direction of the sluice room.

"I just need to..." she said quietly, and watched Rick nod.

"I hope you'll forgive me one day," he said. Andrea had been about to turn away, but this odd statement stopped her dead.

"For what?" she asked him, frowning in a very small way.

"Everythin' I've screwed up in the past," he said, gently, "and everythin' I'm gonna screw up from here on out. I can only do what I think's best," he said, and now _he_ was the one who was smiling, although it was faint and inordinately rueful, a Mona Lisa smile with a great deal of suffering both before and behind it.

"I'm tired," Andrea told him, reflecting the expression as best she could. "I'll forgive you in the mornin', how's that?" She didn't wait for a response, but simply dropped her gaze and headed for the sluice room, pulling the blanket around her and closing the door as she passed.

It struck her at once that something was amiss. There was a breeze coming from somewhere, curling down the passage and stirring her hair a little. The sensation prickled both her skin and her heart and her hands uncurled, allowing the blanket to slip from her shoulders unheeded as she moved forward, unthinking. She made it to the end of the corridor and turned the corner, hearing a quiet squeal as she did so, and then halted in her tracks.

The outer door hung ajar and inched to and fro on its hinges, letting in a slice of ghost-white moonlight that waxed and waned as the door moved. By this illumination, all she could see was a rangy silhouette, which swayed gently, head bowed and hands hooked into loose claws.

She was already backing away as her muscles overruled her terror, but the soft scrape of her feet roused the creature from its stupor and it jerked its head up sharply, snarling through a mouthful of thick fluid and stumbling in her direction. As it did so, she saw others moving into the light behind it.

Andrea whimpered, swung around on her heel and fled, a shriek building in her lungs.

* * *

"So what's going on?"

Sidney paused long enough to shove open a door and scan the room beyond, and then directed an impatient stare at Hoffman.

"Now is not the time, Detective," she said, sharply, drawing back out of the room and moving off down the passage. She had sent Mallick to scour the far side of the cellars, and they were only now finding out just what a convoluted rabbit warren lay beneath the plant; it appeared to stretch far further afield than the building that lay above it, and they had already backtracked once upon encountering a dead end at a locked door.

"If you're going to kill me," said Hoffman, behind her, "then I'd rather you just get it the fuck over with."

This stopped Sidney in mid-stride, and she rounded on him without moving one step further. He backed a way a little at the speed with which she turned, but her expression was serene and her hands were clasped in front of her, well away from the handle of the sword.

"You live in a simple little world of your own, don't you," she said, and this comment was not pitched as a question. "Kill or be killed, that's all you see. Would you believe me if I told you that it's possible to find a little more meaning than _that_, even here and now?"

"No," said Hoffman, and his voice was deep and abrupt, but just for a second he'd looked as if he had a lot more to say. There was still something uncertain, something unutterably more complex, lurking behind the soft gleam in his eyes, though it flared and died as Sidney watched it carefully.

"Well," she said, tilting her head at him, "trust me, you will. The game's almost over. You haven't lost yet."

The detective snorted at her.

"I've survived three traps so far," he said, scornfully. "What's _your_ score?"

Sidney didn't move, blink or sigh, but the angle of her head increased a little to the left and her eyes were glowing with a banked fire.

"I only needed one," she said, placidly. "Since it was _your _work, perhaps you should be proud of yourself, but I don't know; I'm thinking you have more than enough pride to be going on with. It's humility you need to work on, and if you haven't found that after three traps," she said, her tone sliding into the slightest trace of irony and her lips now curving just a little, "then you obviously need a little more coaching than I do. However," she added, "It's interesting you should say 'so far'. Perhaps you're starting to think at last, if not in _quite_ the right direction."

She started to turn away, then seemed to think of something else, and swung back over her shoulder, fixing him with a pointed look.

"There's more to this than survival," she added. "I never doubted you had what it took to survive." She stopped, and looked him up and down. "I want to know if you have what it takes to _live_," she she said, and then seemed to subside a little, her eyes wandering off to the side for a moment. Hoffman watched her warily, but didn't move or speak.

"There's something I should tell you," she said, her gaze still averted, although she cast one quick, nervous glance back at him as she did so. "This isn't what you think. None of it is. Everything's changed." She paused, inhaling gently but shakily. "The night before last, I decided to –"

"She's not down here," said Mallick, rounding the corner, slightly out of breath. Sidney's head snapped around like a whip and she closed her mouth at once, but she looked almost as if she were grateful for the interruption. Mallick, in turn, regarded this expression with bewilderment, but rubbed a hand across his face and recovered a little ground.

"We'd better check upstairs," said Sidney, firmly. "The state that child's in, there's no telling what she'll take it into her head to do." She shot the detective a look, and then started to speak to him; but whatever it was she had on her mind, it went unsaid.

Hoffman's head jerked up at the hoarse crackle of gunfire from upstairs.


	26. Chapter 26

Rick slammed the door and wrenched at the latch to lock it; as an afterthought, he reached for a chair and wedged it beneath the handle. He then stepped back and looked around, his chest heaving erratically.

Andrea was still weeping with barely subdued fear, but she reached up out of sheer reflex and started to pull shells from her ammo belt, reloaded the shotgun without looking down at what she was doing and then aimed it at the door. The barrel was shaking badly, and Rick moved back a little further, edging out of her field of fire and taking up position at her side instead, swinging the rifle up.

"What happened?" he said, hoarsely, and they both jumped as the door rattled slightly beneath a dull, heavy impact from the far side.

"I don't know, I just don't know," Andrea gasped, her voice skipping in her panic. "The door was open, they got in, I..." she tailed off, still trembling violently but sinking onto a lower plane of terror now that she was forcing herself to calm down a little; it was either that or her heart would simply rupture in her chest. Now that the shriek and rush of blood in her ears was subsiding, though, she could hear the sounds behind her even though she dared not turn around. Sophia was crying steadily, the sound hitching every now again as she dragged in a sharp breath to fuel more tears. Aside from this, however, everyone else seemed to be too frightened to speak, though she heard them breathing. All of them, the sound thin and hot and almost as if they were in unison.

"I think we can get out the back, there ain't too many of those sons of bitches out there," said Shane, moving around Rick's shoulder with his revolver drawn, "but it's gotta be _now_." Andrea risked a sidelong glance at the deputy; his forehead was glossed with sweat, and his eyes were rolling slightly. She was focused so hard on his reactions that at first she didn't hear what Rick said to her.

"Andrea?" he reached out for a second and shook her shoulder urgently. "Talk to me. Where are Detective Hoffman and the others?"

"I –" she said, and then found she couldn't speak. She had no answer save the one that had just crawled up from the recesses of her brain, and to which she didn't dare give voice because that would mean admitting to the awful truth: that the others were down in the cellars, _behind_ the door they'd just locked and barricaded and at the mercy of the intruding horde. Andrea fought for control of her vocal cords, and turned an anguished gaze up to meet Rick's, which persisted in blessed puzzlement for just a few seconds more before he, too, realised what they'd done.

"We have to go," he said, and she heard his voice crack with honest sorrow as he spoke, knowing that he was a decent man and that he had just made, in a fraction of a second, a decision that would haunt him for the rest of his life. Andrea knew all of this, it was welded into her brain and her bones, and the logic of the choice was clear. Her gut reaction, though, had no time for rationale, and spurred her across the floor once more, cocking the shotgun and reaching for the latch on the door.

She got no further. Shane's arms tightened around her waist and now he was dragging her back, almost lifting her off her feet in his haste to restrain her.

"I'm so sorry," Rick said, close to hear, sounding grieved, as he took hold of her as well and helped Shane to subdue her. Andrea was blinded by urgency now, all coherence abandoned, fighting, snarling and scratching like a tiger, struggling to escape their combined grasp as the shotgun slipped from her grasp. She couldn't leave Hoffman to die. She _couldn't_. The thought ripped steel claws through her guts and spilled fresh bile into her throat, and now she was shrieking at the two men. Not words; she was too far gone for that. They were simply formless, senseless screams dredged from the livid depths of her spiralling horror.

Rick continued to apologise and to plead with Andrea as the two of them pulled her away from the door and towards the rear entrance of the plant, but she wasn't listening, even as her voice tired of crying out and subsided into hoarse sobs, even as she gave up fighting and sagged into Shane's arms, even as Rick let go of her so that he could shepherd the others ahead of him and down the narrow passageway to the rear door and the loading dock. Only the wicked slap of the icy night air against her face brought her to her senses, and this had less to do with the temperature than it did with the attendant realisation of being outside, something she'd quickly learned to fear.

Her hand closed on something cold and smooth, and she snapped back to see that Rick had pressed her shotgun on her once more.

"I _need_ you," he said, quietly, his voice harsh and strained, but said no more and simply swung around on his heel, raising the rifle, his finger leaping to the trigger. The walker that had been crawling up the stairs fell back in a splash of dark blood, the bullet ripping away the side of its skull and punching its brains out through the exit wound in a thick, greasy spray. Rick was already turning back as it collapsed, and now he jerked his head at Shane.

"Get everyone to the trucks," he snapped. "We'll handle this. And get the spare gas cans," he added, then thinned his lips.

Andrea glanced around; almost too late, as another of the creatures rose up behind her just as she was turning. She drew half a breath, saw that there was no room to fire on it and then let her reflexes take over, bringing the butt of the shotgun up instead and catching it under the chin. The blow wasn't as hard as she would have liked, but it served its purpose well enough and the walker staggered back – far enough, at least, for Andrea to switch her grip on the weapon and, this time, blow its head off, painting its brains across the wall behind it.

She gasped, then sucked in a thin, screaming breath – which stopped halfway down her throat as she finally grasped the significance of Rick's words. As she did so, her lips parted in shock and she turned back, her eyes wide and glassy.

"You can't," she said, shaking her head slowly.

"Andrea..." he began, gently and hesitantly, but his words were interrupted by the slam of the truck's door and Shane hurried back up the steps, a canister of gasoline in each hand. Rick took advantage of this distraction to drop his gaze and take one of the canisters for himself, and Andrea saw that he was suffused with guilt. However strong this might have been, however, was irrelevant; when he looked back up at her she saw that his expression, as sad and broken as it was, was also determined.

"They're already dead, sweetheart," he said, his voice cracking badly. "This is all we have left."

Before she could respond, Rick and Shane had disappeared back into the gloom of the building, leaving her standing alone in a rising breeze and blinking back painful tears in the moonlight, which had suddenly become piercing and almost intolerably bright.

* * *

"Oh fuck..."

Mallick had backed against the wall like a frightened rat, his eyes swollen with panic and his nails scratching quickly and distractedly at the scar tissue on the back of his hand. Even in the midst of her own burgeoning concern, Sidney found time to spare him a compassionate glance, but just as quickly curtailed this and turned a much harder stare upon Hoffman.

"It's started," she said. The detective started briefly, then narrowed his eyes.

"You _knew _this would happen?" he asked.

"It was inevitable," she told him, a slight note of dismissal creeping into her voice. "Now we'll see if I was right or wrong, won't we?"

"About what?" said the detective, challenging, but she had already removed both her gaze and her attention and approached Mallick, placing a soothing hand on his shoulder and trying to look into his eyes, which were wandering left and right and seemed to be going out of focus.

"It'll be all right," she said, gently. "Here." She reached into her pocket and extracted the switchblade, flicking out the blade and holding it out. When Mallick failed to respond to this gesture, she shook him firmly, tightening her fingers on his shoulder as she did so.

"_Mallick_," she said, sharply. "I know you're frightened, but I need you to get a hold of that for a while or we're going to die down here. Do you understand me?" she added, with another shake. This seemed to tear through his panic; or, at least, enough of it to thrust her words into the forefront of his mind. He swallowed, nodded shortly and curled his fingers around the hilt of the knife.

"I'm sorry," he said, and then seemed to sag a little in his skin as he cast a quick glance up and along the corridor and into the darkness there.

"Aim for the eye or the ear, remember," she said, gravely, then stepped back and refocused herself, drawing her sword. Hoffman smirked sourly at this, although he looked more exhausted than anything else.

"You really think we're going to get out of here?" he said.

"That's entirely up to you," said Sidney, her voice sparkling with clear frost, "since you're leading the way."

* * *

The workshop was drenched and reeked of gasoline, and Rick dragged a hand across his eyes as they stung from the fumes and then looked over as Shane pulled out his Zippo and prepared to light it.

"Not yet," he said, after clearing his throat only with great difficulty. "Let's get outside first." He lifted the gas can, hearing the last dregs slap against the side, and nodded. "Y'all go get the truck started. I'll finish up."

When the deputy had left the room, Rick's head and shoulders sagged a little and he rubbed at his eyes once more, but this time the action had little to do with the noxious air in the room. When he looked back up, his tired gaze fell upon Sidney's cane, propped against a chair in the corner, and his mouth twisted bitterly at the sight.

"I'm sorry," he said, very quietly, and then upended the can and headed back towards the rear door of the plant, leaving a trail of gasoline behind him.

Shane was backed against the door of his truck, revolver drawn and shaking, and Rick tossed the empty can aside and silently held out his hand for the Zippo.

"Rick, you sure about this?" said the deputy, but he handed over the lighter and watched as Rick flicked the wheel, raising a fitful blue-yellow flame, which he watched for a second, seemingly lost in it as it cast a soft golden sheen across the glaze in his eyes.

"I'm sure," he said at last, and though his gaze was still distant, his voice was not. He raised his head, turned over his shoulder and drew back his arm.

"Wait!" yelped Shane, his voice strained, and Rick swung his head around to see the others rounding the corner, with Hoffman in the lead. The detective was spattered with blood, but none of it appeared to be human. Sidney stepped out of his shadow as she moved, the sword swinging in her hand and dripping with yet more dark, gluey blood. Her free hand was closed around Mallick's elbow, guiding him; the man, though he was unmarked and untainted, appeared to be in shock.

Rick's jaw shifted with relief, and he turned back, nodded to Shane and then completed his task, tossing the flickering lighter through the doorway, where it ignited the gasoline with a muted roar, the flames belching up the wall, licking the ceiling and racing down the passage ahead of a fine, crackling veil of smoke. He turned away from the conflagration just as Sidney slammed into him, dropped the claymore and shoved at him, driving him back against the wall.

"_Diana's still in there!_" she shrieked, her eyes reflecting not just the flames lit in them but a desperate, growing fire all their own.

"Sidney, let him go," said Andrea, appearing between the pair, manifesting a calm she didn't feel and couldn't find. She reached out and pried Sidney's fingers loose, drawing her away and closing cool fingers on her wrists as she did so, holding the other woman fast in spite of her frantic struggles. After a second or two more, however, Sidney seemed to still herself. Andrea released her grasp and stood back, watching carefully as Sidney exhaled smoothly, stooped to retrieve the sword and then studied it for a second as if she'd never seen it before, turning it to and fro, the firelight glancing off those few inches of the blade that were not dulled by blood. Finally, she set her jaw and raised her head, fixing Rick with a stare so cool that it seemed to lie half an inch from madness.

"Go," she said, firmly. Rick started, his brow creasing.

"What?" he asked, his features creasing with concern. "No, look, we're gonna help you, and I –"

"Take your family and your friends and get out of here," she repeated, just as evenly. "You were going to leave us behind anyway," – here she raised a hand to quell the Sheriff's objection before he could give vent to it – "and this is our problem. So you need to go. _Now!_"

This last word was not delivered in a shriek. It was not even particularly loud. It was carried on the back of a knife-edged hiss that cut through the whistle of the breeze and the snarl of the burning building behind her. Andrea took a step back as she watched Sidney raise her chin defiantly, her profile framed in flames and lit in gold.

Rick shifted his weight a little, seeming prepared to refuse, but then he half turned and caught sight of Lori, who had slipped out of the truck and was staring at him with silent desperation, one hand to her throat. He held his wife's pleading gaze for a moment more and then hung his head.

"Okay," he said, sounding both resigned and beaten. "But here," he added, pulling a radio from his pocket and handing it to Sidney, who took it with a small nod. "We won't have gone too far. Call if you change your mind, you hear me?"

Andrea finally found her voice, though it was cracked and rough.

"No, we're stayin'," she said, and then ran a distracted hand through her hair. "You can't do this alone." She'd meant to address Sidney, but as she spoke, she found her eyes seeking out Hoffman. He hadn't spoken or moved, but now he returned her stare, his eyes half closed. In the next moment she thought she saw him shake his head slightly, but he was mired in the shadows to the far side of the doorway, and she couldn't be sure.

Sidney sighed painfully, took Andrea by the shoulder and then, unexpectedly, leaned in and placed a soft, brief kiss on her cold cheek. When she drew away, Andrea raised bewildered fingertips to her face, exploring the place where that curious gesture had landed.

"You're a good woman," said Sidney, so quietly that it was likely nobody else could hear her words, "but it'll be okay. You need to trust me, and you need to go."

Andrea was preparing to deny this once more when Rick took her by the arm. "Come on," he said, kindly. "We gotta get movin'."

Hoffman drifted out of the shadows and took up silent station beside Sidney and Mallick, and the three of them watched as the Atlanta survivors fled for their vehicles. Engines were started, and headlights flared in the sombre blue pre-dawn light and painted the brickwork of the building as they left the yard one by one, kicking up loose gravel beneath their wheels. Finally, Sidney spoke without turning her head.

"Mallick, you don't have to do this," she said, soberly. Only when she had finished did she turn to look at him, and she saw that his expression, though it was still laced with fear, was also set firm.

"Yeah," he said, slowly and carefully, through a slight sigh, "I kinda do. Have to nut up at some point, don't I?" He lifted the switchblade, looked at it as if for the final drop of courage he needed, and then lowered his arm once more. Sidney smiled at him, briefly but tenderly, then swung around and ran her eyes over Hoffman instead, appraising him.

"It's time," she said, and then brought the claymore up in a swift, efficient arc, arresting it just as the point dented the skin of his throat. He flicked his gaze along the bloodstained blade for a second and then returned it to Sidney's own.

"Time for what?" he asked.

"Win or lose," she said. "Make your choice."


	27. Chapter 27

Sidney stepped into the darkness as if it hardly mattered to her at all.

The conflagration had yet to reach the front of the plant, but there was a river of curdled black smoke pouring across the ceiling of the gloomy passage and out the door, and away in the distance there was a sullen orange glow. The muted roar of the flames underpinned this; faint, but growing louder all the time.

Hoffman and Mallick moved in behind Sidney, and the detective turned his shoulder and edged his way past her in the narrow space. She turned briefly, seeing him glance up at the thickening smoke and then cast a doubtful eye at the far end of the corridor.

"There's something I forgot to mention," he said, almost absently, keeping his voice low and speaking out of the corner of his mouth.

"I suspected as much," said Sidney, just as softly. "What is it?"

"There's a generator in the cellar," Hoffman told her, still in that eerily calm monotone.

"I see," said Sidney, nodding. "Fully fuelled?"

"Guess so."

"So, when the fire reaches it..."

"Yeah."

"Better get moving then, hadn't we?" she said, firmly, almost smiling at him, jerking her head down the corridor.

Sidney and Hoffman edged further into the gloom. The lights were still on, but now that the smoke in the passage had reached them, they were dulled and all but useless, filling the space with murky shadows. Sidney turned as Mallick coughed wretchedly behind her, watching him compassionately as he wiped at his streaming eyes with his sleeve. He caught her eye and swallowed, waving a hand to indicate that he was okay.

In the wake of this, Sidney's head shot up as a soft, muffled cry pierced the darkness, and she stepped forward, raising the claymore in front of her, searching for its source. She was now gagging herself as the smoke thickened, but she fought for self-control and, after a second, won. A few steps more and she fetched up alongside the elevator, Hoffman close behind her. A second high-pitched scream echoed from behind the doors, and the detective, in response, moved alongside her and placed his palm flat on the scratched surface. After a second's thought, he pulled back his hand and frowned.

"She's on the roof, but the fire's in the shaft already," he said, grimly. "We need to get to the stairs."

"Through the workshop?" asked Mallick, nervously, tugging at his collar. The workshop was at the centre of the inferno, and crossing it would prove extremely dangerous, even if there were no walkers left in the building. If there were, however...

Sidney stepped forward and took him by the hand, squeezing it for a second.

"It'll be fine," she said.

Hoffman was already ahead of them, looking the door over, his gaze laced with both doubt and pessimism. The screech of the flames was now verging on intolerable, the cracks around the door were glaring with firelight and smoke was belching out at the top. He fixed the others with a warning look and then stepped aside, curling his fingers around the handle and wincing slightly; it was already painfully hot to the touch. As soon as Sidney and Mallick had moved back, he pulled the door open and ducked behind it for protection.

A tongue of flame twisted out of the doorway, curling as it went, scorching the ceiling and driving a searing blast of superheated air ahead of it. Sidney pressed her face to the wall and wrapped her arms around her head, but even so, she bit her lip to keep from crying out as the skin on the back of her neck and hands prickled and tightened before blistering a little. Finally, as the furious backdraft subsided, she let loose a hiss.

Hoffman was still uncurling himself from behind the door, and Sidney had pressed a hand to the fresh burns on the back of her neck in considerable pain, so only Mallick saw the walker plunge out of the doorway, its hair and clothing still on fire and its teeth bared and dripping thick white mucus. It had set its sights on Sidney, and he acted without thought, seizing her by the shoulder and throwing her aside, out of the creature's path.

It slammed into Mallick instead, and he had already lost his balance and was unable to defend himself. The knife fell from his hand as the walker bit down on his neck, ripping first into the skin and then the muscle beneath, chewing at his flesh. His blood first flowed and then spurted as the creature's teeth found his jugular vein and tore through it without hesitation. The assault was carried out in grisly silence until Mallick found the breath to shriek, but by then he was drowning in his own blood, and the sound emerged as a thick, bubbling gurgle. Finally, a shadow moved across his blurred, swimming vision and then the world exploded.

Hoffman lowered the pistol and grabbed the walker by one limp arm, pulling it off Mallick and shoving it away, where it hit the wall and slumped, half its head gone and its brains spilling out. Sidney had already moved to catch him, but he was a dead weight in her arms and all he could do was press one weak, shaking hand to the hole in his throat as she struggled to lower him to the floor as gently as she could, her eyes wet and her mouth trembling.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," she said, over and over, patting Mallick's face, her hands fluttering and frantic. He blinked at her, very slowly, his eyes growing heavy, and then dragged his head up with a tremendous feat of effort, trying to focus on Hoffman.

"Finish it," he hissed, blood oozing between his teeth and staining his chin as he spoke. The detective had not moved, but now he nodded curtly, thinned his lips and raised his arm once more, taking aim at Mallick's head.

"No," said Sidney, pinning Hoffman with a cold stare. "Give me that." She held out her hand for the Browning, and after a pause for consideration, he turned it around and handed it to her without a word. She settled the grip in her palm and curled her finger on the trigger, looking down at the weapon for a moment as the tears slowed and then dried on her cheek. At last, she looked back up at Mallick and brushed his hair off his forehead.

"Close your eyes," she said, very softly, and he offered her as much of a smile as he could manage before doing so. Sidney climbed to her feet, raised the gun and fired, turning her gaze away. She did not look back, but turned instead to Hoffman and returned the Browning, her hand quivering just a little. As she raised her head and looked him in the eye, he started to speak, but she shook her head.

"Don't say anything," she said, flatly, her eyes as dull as her voice, and that seemed to be that.

They moved through the doorway and into the workshop, glancing around for more walkers as they went. With little to consume in the centre of the floor, the flames were crawling up the walls instead and licking at the rough beams beneath the ceiling. The blowback seemed to have sucked most of the life out of the fire in the room, but there was yet more smoke in here and Hoffman raised his free hand to his face, trying to breathe as lightly as he could as his eyes reddened perilously. Sidney, for her part, seemed not to be affected, but turned on her heel instead, searching for the door to the stairs.

There were five more walkers blocking their path, the light of the flames gleaming across their glazed eyes.

Hoffman swung his arm up without hesitation, but as the creatures spilled out of the narrow doorway and advanced on them with terrifying haste, Sidney took him by the wrist and dragged him away.

"Too many," she said, shaking her head and leading him across the floor to the sickroom. Her voice wavered badly, sounding weak and almost disoriented, but her grip on his arm was frighteningly powerful and she moved fast, plunging through the door with the detective in her wake. Hoffman spun around and slammed the door behind them, pulling at the lock and reaching up to drive the bolt home as well. This done, he planted his hands on his hips and hung his head for a moment, catching his breath.

"We should be able to get out the side door," he said, his voice rasping from the smoke he'd inhaled, and he coughed viciously for a second. "I think –" he went on, a little more clearly, turning around, and then his words tailed off in confusion.

Sidney was backed against the gurney, her features compressed with agony and her fingers clamped to her side. She smothered a cry and raised her head, slowly, as if even this slight movement was suffering itself.

"_Mark..._" she breathed, her voice high and childlike and her eyes streaming with sudden, helpless tears, and then she collapsed. Hoffman's reflexes took control and he darted over to her, catching her before she hit the floor. Her head tipped forward onto his chest and his hands found nothing but frail skin and bone beneath her clothing as he gathered her into his arms and lifted her off her feet. Her claymore clattered to the floor as her hand unfurled, but he ignored it, turning to lay her on the gurney.

"What's wrong? Sidney?" he asked, as her head rolled to the side and she tried as best she could to focus on him. He half turned away now, seeing that she was still clutching at her ribs, and pulled her fingers away gently, pushing her shirt up and exposing a blood-soaked bandage. He frowned and lifted this, too, finding a swollen, festering bite mark beneath.

"When?" he said, after a solemn pause.

"Just before the others came," she whispered, coughing weakly. "Nobody else knew. Had to stay strong. Had to keep my promise." Fresh tears ran from her eyes and she blinked at them. "Looks like I'm going to break it," she said, miserably, and swallowed a mouthful of thick blood.

"Gordon told you to kill me, didn't he?" said Hoffman, laying his palm against her cheek. Even through what must have been a crushing weight of pain, he watched her smile, her clouded eyes clearing a little and her expression angelic.

"You're a fool, Mark Hoffman" she told him, tenderly, "if you believe that Lawrence thought of _you_ at the very end of his life. Would a loving father use his last breath to plead for vengeance? No. I lied to you, I'm afraid," she went on, reaching up to take his hand. "I'm not your test. _Diana_ is."

Her fingers tightened on Hoffman's now, desperate and trembling. He began to frame a word, some hesitant question, but she went on.

"No, listen to me," she hissed. "You need to know something else. I tried to tell you earlier. I was bitten because I slipped out of the house that night to find you. You were passed out, you never knew I was there, and I -"

_...knelt down by his side, stretching out one hand and finding the erratic pulse in Hoffman's throat before shaking her head and standing up once more, not taking her eyes from his face, which looked sickly white even by the weak light of the lantern she'd set on the floor. His breathing sounded rough, and faltered every now and then as she listened, but her own was now scarcely any easier, and she staggered a little as the fresh wound in her side sent a screaming firework of pain through her flesh._

_Sidney subdued herself through gritted teeth and drew the claymore with only the barest of scratching sounds. She lifted it in both hands, wrapping her freezing fingers around the hilt and spreading her feet for balance as she took aim at his neck, meaning to drive the cold steel through his carotid artery as hard as she could. Quick, efficient and as painless as possible. She set her sights and raised her arms a little higher, feeling them start to shake a little even as she did so, but then squeezed her eyes tight shut for a moment and, by inches, lowered the blade once more..._

"I couldn't do it," she said, huskily. "I paid the price for it, but I spared your life. I had to believe you weren't past redemption," she went on, her voice fading fast and her words stumbling over one another in their rush to be spoken before her heart failed her. "I knew if I could save you, you'd be the finest guardian she could have. I forgave you. Forgive _her_. She doesn't deserve to die. Swear to me," she whispered.

(_Swear to me, Sidney. Promise you'll protect my daughter, whatever it takes_)

"Promise me you'll save her."

"I promise," said Hoffman, lifting her head from the gurney into the crook of his arm, matching her burning gaze. He leaned closer, feeling her breath fanning his face, harsh and throaty at first but growing weaker with each subsequent exhalation as her chest fluttered like a bird in a cage. He kept his watch as the very last of those laboured breaths washed over him, and then her wide brown eyes dimmed and she twitched, just once, and then sagged in his arms.

He didn't move for several moments, then he quietly set her head back down, his expression still and unfathomable. He bent to recover the sword, which he laid on her chest, folding her limp hands over the hilt, then checked the Browning's clip to see, without much surprise, that there was just one bullet left.

He replaced the clip, pressed the muzzle of the pistol to Sidney's temple and pulled the trigger.


	28. Chapter 28

Hoffman staggered out into the pre-dawn chill and inhaled gratefully.

There were tendrils of smoke curling out of the door, and he moved further out into the fresh air to get away from these, stumbling slightly on the steps and, now that the adrenaline surge was dying down a little, becoming aware of scratches, bruises and a few superficial burns he'd sustained without noticing. A sudden survival instinct had him jerking his head up, scanning the yard for walkers, but there were none. The moon was sinking over the harbour, painting a silver path across the black water, and the approaching sunrise was staining the eastern sky in bars of pink and gold.

He started to walk away, trudging across the yard with his head down, limping ever so faintly as the smoke from the burning plant streamed over his head in the breeze. Behind him, the building settled with a soft groan as the flames continued to tear at its heart, and he dimly heard the soft crack as the fire punched through a window, scattering glass onto the ground, its tinkling almost melodious. It reminded him of –

_...the glass shards sliced unheeded into his back and shoulders, and he smiled in triumph as Strahm's blood rained down upon the lid of the glass box and stained the world crimson. But he turned his head. He looked away at the very last moment, unable to watch the end..._

The detective grunted, shaking his head fiercely to dismiss this memory as he recovered from the hesitation it had caused and started walking again. He glanced down at his hand as he moved, seeing that he still held the pistol in one loose fist. It was empty now, useless, and he tossed it aside and moved on, hand straying to his pocket instead. He pulled out the ice pick, still sticky with the blood of the walkers he'd slain not half an hour ago, and he –

_...felt Perez's hand graze his cheek, gliding through the fresh blood there as he drove the knife into her for the final time, this time twisting it savagely in her flesh. She sought his eyes with the last of her defiance, her lip quivering nonetheless, as she sagged against him, and he stumbled back in unanticipated shock as she tumbled to the floor..._

"It wasn't like that," he muttered, his throat sore and his voice still hoarse from the smoke, and regained his pace once more. The side gate was ahead of him and he made for it, still unsteady on his feet, his head swimming, and turned away from the rising sun as he did so. There was a crash from far behind him as some outlying part of the building caved in; he didn't turn to check. Instead, he recovered his balance and his senses and reached for the latch on the gate, drawing it back with a short metallic snap that sounded like –

_...the padlock on the trap as Jill regained both consciousness and awareness, whimpering through the vicious iron claws in her mouth as she tugged on the restraints to no avail. He stood back to watch her struggles, and he should have been smiling at her death throes, but somehow, he wasn't. He saw the disbelieving horror flare in her dark eyes in that last second, and then the trap sprung, tearing her head apart, and he dropped his gaze..._

"I had no fucking _choice!_" he snarled, and swung the gate back on its hinges so hard that it slammed back against the fence, rattling it. In the lee of this discordant noise, he stopped at last, one hand hooked into the chain link fence, gasping softly, breath condensing in the icy air in front of him and misting his vision for a second. When Hoffman raised his eyes once more it was in complete silence, however, and only one thing now pierced that stillness.

A scream.

He didn't turn as this thin, desperate wail cut the air, but continued to gaze ahead quite blindly, fingers tightening on the steel fence until his knuckles ached and his flesh stung.

(_There's nowhere left to run_)

He still didn't turn, but now his frame shook from head to toe.

(_You've been given a chance to rejoin what's left of the human race_)

He screwed up his eyes in an attempt to silence Sidney's patient, persistent voice. He knew she was dead. He'd watched her die.

(_You're free now. Make the best of it_)

This last commentary finally ripped Hoffman from his trance. It wasn't Sidney's voice, but was delivered in a whisper so ghostly and sibilant that he couldn't identify it. He reared back in confusion, his arm falling to his side and his head aching. He was disoriented for a second, and his shoulders hunched a little as he bit down on his own tongue to try to refocus himself. As he did so, there was one more distant cry from the roof of the plant. It sounded much weaker now.

Hoffman stared at the building for long moments, seeing that it was now completely ringed by flames and almost lost to view in a smudgy halo of black smoke. He hung his head, cursed briefly and softly, and started back.

* * *

Andrea could barely see the road through her tears.

The radio lay on the passenger seat beside her. From time to time, as she drove, Rick's voice would crackle over the airwaves, calling her name, begging her to respond, but she ignored it and stared dead ahead, her spine stiff, and wept in complete silence. There was only one voice she wanted to hear from the radio.

After a few minutes more, she saw Rick's brake lights flare ahead of her, and he swung the truck around, blocking her path. She heard him get out and slam the door, and then he was approaching her window. She got out to meet him.

"Why didn't you answer me?" he asked, looking at her closely for a second before scanning their surroundings for walkers; an instinctive movement. When he'd satisfied himself that they were in no immediate danger, he caught Andrea's eye once more. His expression was sympathetic, and there was no way he could have failed to see how red her eyes were, so she wondered if she had to speak up at all. Still, she had to ask.

"Was that really so easy for you?" she said, hearing the edge to her own voice, hating how cruel and judgemental she sounded in that one moment, but powerless to take back her words or to soothe the sudden pain that flitted across his face.

"That ain't fair," he said, but he spoke just as gently as before.

"None of this is fair, Rick," she told him, and her voice was, if not soft, then at least a little softer than before, though she stared at the ground, feeling his worried gaze falling on the top of her head instead. After a few seconds of discomfort, she looked back up at him.

"You made your decision," she said, flatly, and now her tears had ceased, her eyes were suddenly so dry that they stung. "This is mine. I'm going back for them. If we leave innocent people to die, then what the fuck are we fightin' for, Rick? Huh?"

He looked away, stared up at the brightening sky above them for a second with a deep, drawn-out sigh, then shook his head and fixed her with a sharp look.

"Two seconds, okay?" he said, and sprinted back to his truck, returning with the Remington, slinging it over his shoulder as he moved. Andrea's mouth worked for a second, but he raised a hand to forestall her before she could speak out. "Hush now, sweetheart," he told her, firmly. "I'm comin' with you. You ain't alone and you never were. Don't you know that by now?" he added, reaching out to squeeze her shoulder. There was one more tear now, but she ignored it, smiled at him as bravely as she could and then climbed back into the truck.

She waited until Rick had thrown himself into the passenger seat and then gunned the engine and slammed her foot down on the accelerator.

* * *

Another walker was trying to reach Diana.

She stepped back and kicked it in the head as it struggled to haul itself onto the elevator housing, and she thought she heard bone snap as she did so, but either way the creature growled and dropped back down onto the roof. As she turned on her toes, she saw a second walker clambering up and lurching to its feet, a long streamer of bloodstained saliva depending from its lower lip. Diana backed away a little, coughing and spitting as the smoke enveloped her, and then swung her fist as hard as she could.

This desperate blow landed on the creature's cheek but glanced off, and barely seemed to register. The walker cocked its head at her and reached out, scraping ragged nails over her sweatshirt, trying to take hold of her as she stumbled back once more and, this time, felt one heel slip over the edge.

"Hey, motherfuckers..."

The walker turned in confusion, snarling faintly, and Diana jerked her head around too, just as her strength deserted her and she dropped to her knees, gasping for air. She blinked to clear her vision a little and then, in spite of the heat, felt her heart turn to ice at the sight that confronted her.

Hoffman had scaled the fire escape and was standing on the parapet, framed against the fresh amber glow of the dawn. He held her axe in one hand, the blade low at his side and swinging slowly back and forth. His face was speckled with dark blood on one side and streaked with soot on the other, but his eyes gleamed as brightly as ever in the low light and he studied the half dozen walkers in front of him with cool equanimity as a small, frightening smile played around his lips for a second. The fire had broken through a crack in the roof below his feet and painted him in murderous orange flarelight.

The creatures swung around, one by one, cold eyes narrowing and mouths dropping open, and then they moved. Hoffman dropped off the parapet and advanced as well, lifting the axe and fixing his free hand around it just below the head. That smile was gone now, and, as Diana watched from her perch, she saw cold killing passion stir in his eyes instead.

The first of the walkers reached him and pounced awkwardly, but he slammed the axe into its neck and just as swiftly pulled it free again. The blade had sliced through skin, arteries and muscle with ease, almost severing its head but for its spinal cord. Blood spurted, sticky and slow, and Hoffman aimed one more blow at it and, this time, decapitated it completely and watched as its head rolled away.

His hesitation was momentary but crucial, and two more of the creatures turned on him, one of them closing its hands on his shoulder and striking, jagged teeth seeking his throat. Hoffman's catlike reflexes were his only saviour, as he rounded in its grasp, drove his fist into the thing's jaw and kicked it off the roof in one smooth, almost perfunctory movement. The other was still closing on him, but he adjusted his grip on the handle of the axe, stepped back for more leverage and swung, cracking its head open.

Diana crawled across the elevator housing, feeling the steel panelling reach the point of blistering pain beneath her bare palms as the flames licked up the shaft. She had no more breath left to cry out, however, and she merely let out a soft croak and tumbled off the edge, dropping onto her feet but losing her balance once more and falling forward, feeling loose shards of glass and gravel slice her unprotected hands. Her hair whipped and streamed across her face, blinding her further, but she dragged her head up and watched Hoffman as three more walkers circled him like jackals, looking for an opening. For a split second he looked at her, right at her, and she saw something in his eyes she just couldn't interpret. Then he took aim at the nearest of the creatures and drew back the axe.

It was too much for Diana, too much by half. She slipped onto her side, curling up into a ball, her lungs aching and cramping, seizing up from the scalding smoke as her pulse leapt and bounded and her heart struggled beneath her ribs. She could no longer see a thing, and she pushed her hair off her face with one shaking hand, but this made no difference. Everything was still clouded. All that was left her were sounds; the crackle of the burning building, the whistle of the axe and the sound of Hoffman's breath, harsh and furious. There was a dull thump as something heavy hit the roof beside her, but she no longer cared; she understood that she was dying, but somehow, that didn't seem to matter, either.

At last, all but one of these sounds ceased, and then she was alone with only the roar of the flames as they found another breach in the roof and poured through, clawing at the sky above, spiralling into the air and spitting sparks as they went. Her eyes cleared slightly, though they were flooded with tears, and she raised her head a little, seeing the detective standing over her, still holding the axe, which was slimy with blood.

"Oh no, you don't," he told her, softly, but they were just words. They meant nothing to her brain, which was now freewheeling in darkness. There was, all at once, no further pain in her hands or her chest, and even though she knew what that signified, she was grateful for it. Diana blinked once more, and in a last moment of satisfied clarity she saw a rangy shadow behind Hoffman. She watched it rise, watched it leap, watched him turn to confront it, but it was far too late.

She was still smiling as she died.


	29. Chapter 29

The truck bumped into the yard and Andrea hauled hard on the wheel, bringing it to a halt in a spray of gravel.

She was out of the driver's seat at once, tugging her shotgun from the well between the seats and shrugging the cartridge belt over her shoulder and around her neck. The heat from the plant was fierce, tightening the skin on her cheek, and she shied back, fanning her hand in front of her face to drive away a lick of smoke. When she recovered, she backed away a little and craned her neck up, turning left and right, her eyes wide with panic.

Every single window at the front was gone, and tails of flame were fluttering from the shattered frames, scorching and blackening the bricks above. It was clear that the building had been gutted, but Andrea picked up her feet and rounded the corner, searching for another way in. As she did so, she almost stumbled over the corpse of a walker. She quickly corrected this conclusion as the thing turned its head, weakly, and growled at her. It was trying to get up, but after retreating a little and watching it for a second or two more, she realised that its back was broken. Some instinct had her glancing up at the roof, and then she looked back down, cocked the shotgun and shot the crippled creature in the face without further consideration or the smallest hint of emotion. She then exhaled harshly and turned around to get her bearings.

The side door was a tornado of smoke, but she could see no flames, and she was just about to draw a deep breath, just about to walk into that Stygian gloom, when Rick caught up with her and closed a restraining hand on her elbow. She turned and tried to pull away, but he tightened his grip in response.

"We're too late," he said, pleading. "You gotta accept it."

Andrea's brow furrowed defiantly, and she was preparing to fight her way out of Rick's grasp when there was a sharp clatter from the fire escape nearby. She swung around just in time to see something land in the gravel beneath the ladder, and she jogged over to see what it was, slowing her pace as it became clear that it was Diana's axe, clotted with blood from one end to the other, hardly an inch of the handle or the head left untainted. Instinct had her raising the shotgun and looking up at the fire escape, and at first she couldn't see clear, but then understanding dawned and her heart leapt into her throat.

Hoffman was making his way down the rusted, clanking iron ladder, slowly and awkwardly, carrying something – no, she amended that thought – carrying _someone_ over his shoulder. Andrea pressed her palm to her mouth for a second as she caught sight of long, bedraggled blonde hair, then the detective turned, hopped down the last few feet of the ladder and knelt to lay the girl on the ground, cupping one hand behind her head and staring into her face at close quarters. He pressed the fingers of his free hand into the soft flesh beneath the angle of her jaw. After a second, he grunted something savage yet inaudible and then snapped his head up, seeing Andrea and Rick at last.

"She's not breathing," he said, simply, his voice sounding rough and almost dead, and then set Diana's head back down and bent, closing his mouth on hers and breathing into her lungs. He drew back a little, watching her face, but there was no response, and Andrea dropped to her knees at the girl's side as he swore softly and tried once more. There was still nothing there.

Andrea watched helplessly, her eyes aching with tears that threatened but remained unshed. Hoffman growled and made another attempt, and this time, when he pulled back again his face was twisted in fury. He raised his hand and delivered a brutal slap to Diana's face, leaving a vivid mark on her white cheek.

"Come on, you stupid little bitch," he spat. "Wake the fuck _up!_" He followed this with another breath, and this time, when he sat back, Andrea heard a rasping hiss from the girl's throat, which turned into a brittle, barking cough along the way. Her eyelids fluttered up, but her gaze seemed unfocused, and her head fell to the side as a thin trickle of dark fluid ran over her lower lip. The detective's eyes were rooted to her face, and he reached out as the girl's eyes closed once more, checking her breathing and her pulse, but after a second, Andrea heard him loose the softest, tiniest sigh.

"Just passed out," he said, almost to himself, and then he slipped his arms beneath Diana and struggled to his feet, swaying a little beneath her weight but recovering his balance with considerable effort. He cast the briefest of glances at Andrea, but before she could read this, he had walked away, turning the corner of the building. In the wake of this, Andrea bent to recover the axe and shot Rick a look of pure confusion, and then they both followed Hoffman.

When they found him, he was pulling open the rear door of the truck and laying the unconscious teenager on the back seat. He half turned, fixed the others with a deadly sober look and held out his hand for the axe. Andrea passed it over without thinking, and watched him place it alongside Diana's still form. Finally, he turned away once more, and when he did so, Andrea saw a smile pass across his face for a second. It shocked her; for the first time, it seemed to be a genuine smile, without pretension, and would have been almost innocent had it not been for the circumstances. As it was, this expression filled her with bitter foreboding. A question rose in her throat in spite of her attempts to subdue it.

"You're not comin' with us, are you," she said, knowing as she spoke that she'd been wrong. It wasn't even a question. It was a prediction, and as she watched Hoffman's eyes, she knew it was accurate. She reached out without looking and took his hand, and though she wanted to be wrong, she couldn't deny the evidence as she felt blood flowing free over her searching fingers. Fresh and undeniably human blood.

His blood.

"I can't," he said, holding her gaze. She didn't dare look down. Didn't need to look down. She kept her hold on Hoffman's hand as a fresh crimson rivulet dripped from his sleeve and trickled down slowly but inexorably, warming her cold skin as it went. He raised his free hand and touched her cheek for a moment, but said nothing.

"There must be something we can do," said Andrea, though she heard these words in her head and knew just how futile they were. She was grateful that Hoffman didn't bother to contradict a desperate plea that was born of denial, but now there was something else on her mind as well. She averted her eyes for a second and looked at Diana, then returned her attention to the detective.

"Tell me the truth, Mark," she said, quietly. "What's it matter now?"

He shifted fractionally, uncertain, and then dipped his head, his expression grave.

"Her name's Diana Gordon," he said, and his eyes flickered back and forth as he searched her face for a reaction. Andrea started to frown, but no sooner had puzzlement had arrived than it was gone again, fleeing before a small but critical memory. Her lips parted a little, but it took a few moments more to compose her thoughts.

"Doctor Gordon's daughter?" she asked, at last, and watched him nod.

"Don't blame Sidney," he told her. "She was just trying to protect the kid. Probably didn't think you'd understand."

"I ain't sure I do," said Andrea, but she looked around at Diana once more, and set her shoulders. "We'll take care of her," she added, and in spite of everything, and in spite of what felt like more grief than she could possibly bear, she heard fresh conviction in her own voice.

"Good," said Hoffman, and once again she saw that gentle smile cross his face for a fraction of a second, and wondered if he was even aware of it. "Now get going," he said, withdrawing his hand from hers. His face was perfectly still now, and she knew, in that moment, that the sight would be with her for the rest of her life. She looked around to see that Rick had been watching them from a discreet distance, but now he moved forward and touched her shoulder before turning to Hoffman.

"Thank you," he said, his tone strangely peaceful, and then he hung his head.

Andrea tried to move, but a sudden thought stopped her, and she unhooked both her shotgun and her cartridges and handed them to Hoffman, who took them in silence. She tried to match his gaze once more, but this time, it was too much. She bit her lip, handed her keys to Rick and climbed into the back seat of the truck, lifting Diana's head and settling it in her lap, where she ran her fingers through the girl's hair over and over, the movement mindless and repetitive. She kept her head down as Rick started the truck, but as he pulled away, she turned over her shoulder to look at Hoffman through the rear window.

He was walking away from the plant now, and as Andrea kept watch, she saw the building collapse in the midst of a titanic explosion, the walls folding in like a house of cards and fresh flames spilling out over the ruins. A glaring yellow fireball lurched into the sky, rolling up in a shroud of smoke, and she saw it ruffle his hair, but he didn't flinch and didn't look back.

At last, Andrea turned away; and then, as quietly as she could, she started to sob.

* * *

(_everything'll be okay_)

(_believe me you have to believe me I'm sorry_)

Diana's eyes snapped open, and it was as if consciousness had sprung upon her, claws out. She fought it for a moment, railed against what she knew she would find on the other side, but eventually submitted to its embrace. Sight and sound flowed back, bringing with them a multitude of troubles and doubts and a not inconsiderable burden of physical pain, most of it in her chest, which felt scalded and raw even as she tried to breathe as slowly as she could.

She struggled up, untangling herself from Andrea's arms and then promptly slumping against the window of the truck as a sudden wave of dizziness broke over her head. She allowed this to run its course, pressing her cheek against the cold glass, and then looked around very slowly.

Andrea was watching her carefully and, just as she'd suspected, the woman's face was suffused with guilt and a weight of unhappy knowledge, as well as being deathly pale and marked with the tracks of fresh tears. Diana found nothing unexpected about this, and she realised that the truth of the matter was already gestating at the front of her mind, but she cleared her throat and asked anyway, purely for the record.

"Where are they?" she said.

"Honey, I'm afraid I got some bad news," Andrea began, but Diana held up a hand for a moment to stop her.

"It's been nothing but bad news for a long time," she said, "so you may as well get it over with. Whatever it is, I'll deal with it, so please?" Andrea seemed shocked at this statement, but it was both mild and fleeting, and eventually she nodded before continuing.

"Sidney and Mallick are dead," she said, and then swallowed heavily, closing her eyes briefly; Diana found room for a stab of sympathy, but made no further interruption. "Detective Hoffman was bitten. We had to leave him behind. He saved your life, and he..."

It was at this point that Diana stopped breathing entirely for a second as her mind slipped sideways. She was dimly aware that Andrea was still speaking, but it no longer registered. She held a hand to her head for a second, trying to think, battling a sudden spasm of confusion so strong it was almost nauseating. Then, a tiny scrap of memory pricked at her and she jerked her head back up, head clearing at once, lips moving in silence for a second, before refocusing on Andrea.

"No, that's not –" she said, and then sank her teeth into her lip and changed direction, leaning over the driver's seat and tapping Rick's shoulder. "Pull over," she said, urgently.

Rick drew the truck up by the side of the road before turning around in his seat, staring at her in undisguised bewilderment. She smiled at him as gently as she could and then, without a further word, she grabbed the axe and wrenched the door open, scrambling out onto the road and starting to walk away as soon as she'd hit the ground. She heard footsteps behind her, and then Andrea took her shoulder, turning her around.

"What are you doin'?" she asked, her eyes filled with frightened concern. Diana lowered the axe to her side, thought for a moment and then hooked her arm around Andrea's neck, pulling her into a tight, impulsive hug and speaking close by her ear.

"I'll be fine," she said, very softly, "and so will you. Take care of yourself, okay?" This said, she drew back again and looked around at Rick, who remained by the truck, one hand pressed to the back of his neck. He didn't say a word, but after a while, Diana watched him nod at her across the space between them, and she returned the gesture. It said everything she felt needed to be said.

Then, with one last, infinitely fond look at Andrea, she swung around and broke into a run.


	30. Chapter 30

She caught up with Hoffman at the crest of the hill. The sun had cleared the horizon and for the moment all Diana could see was his lonely, windswept silhouette as he turned toward the sound of her steps. She slowed to a walk now, approaching him cautiously. As she reached his side she looked up; his face was caught half in shadow and half in the bright golden glare of the new dawn, and she thought to herself that she had never seen anything more befitting the man.

"I just wanted to check something," she said, and reached out, taking hold of his wrist before he could move to prevent it. She ignored the sticky, drying blood beneath her fingers and pushed back his sleeve, looking down at his forearm, studying the fresh wound in silence as the sun mounted the sky and warmed the weak breeze that washed over them both. Finally, she found her voice once more and assembled a few words with the utmost care.

"That's the weirdest bite I've ever seen," she said.

"Yeah," was all he said, still staring levelly into the air over her head.

"Can I ask why?"

He didn't answer her at once, but she felt his muscles tense slightly beneath her touch before he extracted himself from her grasp, covering the cut once more, still avoiding her penetrating stare. He hung his head for a moment and she heard him release what sounded like a deep breath held for far too long, and it whistled softly through his lips as he exhaled. Only then did he return her gaze.

"They'll be better off without me," he said. Diana nodded sagely.

"Yes, she will," she told him, without bothering to check for a response to her meaningful correction. "I won't, though," she added, shouldering the axe and looking up at him, the sun sparkling for a second in her eyes as she waited for a response.

"You tried to kill me," he said, at length, and she heard the subtext very clearly in spite of his careful tone. It wasn't an accusation or even, for that matter, a simple statement of fact. There was a tiny question curled up inside the words, and she addressed it.

"My dad once told me that vengeance can change a person," she replied, looking down at her feet for a second as she spoke. "Sometimes it's for the better."

The breeze died away entirely, leaving the two of them standing in a pool of silence that contrived to be deeper still for the sudden curiosity brewing behind the detective's impassive expression.

"You sure you don't want to go with the Sheriff?" he asked, his head on one side. "He's the good guy, remember?" he added, and though there should have been a lilt of sarcasm in this last comment, Diana could hear no such scorn.

"That's the problem," she said. "I don't need a good guy. It's going to take a real asshole to survive this."

Hoffman blinked. "Did you just call me an asshole?" he asked, though he wore the faintest ghost of a smirk as he did so.

"What if I did?" asked Diana, still holding his gaze. "I'd take it as a compliment, if I were you."

Hoffman didn't reply to this. Instead, he shrugged the shotgun off his back, cracked it open and started to load it with considered ease, his hands moving slowly and carefully as he pulled the shells from the belt. When it was done, he chambered the first round with a soft click and then lowered the weapon until it was hanging at his side, muzzle pointing at the road.

"It's gonna be dangerous," he said.

"As opposed to what?" she retorted, staring him down.

"I'm not your fucking babysitter, is what I mean," he said, but there was no real annoyance in his voice and, in fact, he was watching her with the tiniest fleck of respect in his eyes.

"Good, because you'd _really_ suck at it," she said, glancing away for a second before looking back at him, her eyes bright. "Are you any good with that?" she asked, her tone calm and conversational, nodding at the shotgun.

He shrugged lazily. "Not too bad," he said.

"I hope you're right," she told him through a pleasant smile, angling her head down the hill, where two walkers were stumbling and edging closer to them, teeth bared in silent snarls and eyes full of cold blood, driving their shadows before them. Hoffman hefted the weapon, raised it to his shoulder and cocked it, and then paused, looking down at Diana as she lifted the axe to skull-cracking height and swung it back in both hands.

"Which one do you want?" he asked her.

"The big one," she said, and charged.

* * *

**A/N: What can I say? This has been one of the most heartbreaking and astounding things I've ever written. I won't say it's all been easy going, and at times this story threatened to get the better of me, but I made it and I made it work. Dear readers: once again, thank you all so much for staying with me to the end. You're incredible, each and every one of you.**

**I'll see you in the near future for the sequel. Oh, yes. There's more to tell, so stick around...**


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